
























































I 





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Masquerading Mary 





f 















Printed in the United States of America 





Copyright , 1924 
by 

The Reilly & Lee Co. 


AH Rights Reserved 


Masquerading Mary 


SEP 22 *24 






Masquerading 

Mary 


















Masquerading Mary 


CHAPTER I 

The train, southward bound from New York, 
moved rapidly, sometimes gliding with incred¬ 
ible smoothness on shining rails, sometimes rock¬ 
ing and swaying on a new road bed, rattling 
over a bridge, shrieking through a non-stop 
town, puffing and panting into the station of 
a city. It moved so rapidly that it seemed to 
be getting ahead of the feeble February day¬ 
light and catching up w T ith the darkness. 

“ A day coach ain’t so bad in the day time — 
but believe me, it’s something fierce when it gets 
dark outside. I feel like I’d been born and 
brought up on these old red velvet cushions and 
haven’t ever had any ‘other home. I can t re¬ 
member when I wasn’t bouncing along some¬ 
where between New York and Baltimore with 
a baby crying in the next seat and a bald headed 
man eating peanuts and rattling a newspaper 
across the ’aisle. I know I ve got a ticket to 
7 


8 Masquerading Mary 

Richmond, Virginia, and sometime along about 
one in the morning I’ll get there — I know it, 
but I can’t believe it. I feel like I’m going to 
spend the rest of my young life right on these 
old red cushions.” 

The speaker was a woman of ample figure 
and face, pleasing looking in spite of the in¬ 
human aspect of her hair, which showed unmis¬ 
takable signs of having gone through many and 
various ordeals both at the hands of the perma¬ 
nent waver and far from permanent dyer. Her 
hair was a streaked mahogany red, with purple 
shadows and peroxide high lights. Her re¬ 
marks were addressed to a young woman whom 
the fortune of travel had made her seat mate. 

“ Oh, don’t we arrive in Richmond before 
that time? I fancied it would be earlier. The 
Bradstreet — time tables, I mean — are con¬ 
fusing.” 

“ Umhum! English! I been wondering what 
you are. I reckon you won’t want to talk. My 
experience with the English is that they are 
mighty standoffish travelers no matter what 
class, first, second or third. Now me — I am 
a natural born mixer, especially when I am 
spending a night in a day coach. If you want 
me to dry up, say so. I’m not one to get 
huffy.” 


9 


Masquerading Mary 

The seat mate laughed. The laugh had a 
certain arresting lilt, vaguely reminding the 
friendly one of the song of a bird with a 
broken wing, granted that a bird so maimed 
would or could sing. 

“ Please do not — er — er — dry up. I 
think it is exceedingly kind of you to talk to 
me. I might have pronounced the Americans 
standoffish had you gone all the way .to Rich¬ 
mond without speaking to me. Why do you 
think I am English? ” 

“ I don’t think any more — I know. The 
word ‘ Bradstreet ’ set me to thinking, and the 
way you pronounced Americans ‘ Amehreecans 9 
makes me know. I’ve traveled a lot in my time, 
in fact I keep myself broke traveling, and I 
like to size up the folks I meet on my journeys. 
Do you? ” 

“Why, yes — it is interesting.” 

“ I reckon you are sizing me up just the same 
as I am you and maybe you are getting me 
better than I am you. This is the way I see 
you. Of course I may be wrong, but you 
look to me like an English girl who has recently 
landed and landed broke, or almost broke, or 
you wouldn’t be on this cattle car. You ain’t 
used to traveling this way. How do I know 
that? By your grips and your shoes and your 


10 


Masquerading Mary 

finger nails. Shoes and nails are great little 
indicators of character.” 

Again the lilting laugh! 

“But your nails are well kept, too; your 
shoes quite smart, and I am sure my bags are 
not so handsome as yours. You are not Eng¬ 
lish, are you? ” 

“ Lord love you, no! I’m from the good old 
South — Virginia — not Richmond. I’m coun¬ 
try born and bred; but along with getting fed 
up on corn pone and cabbage, I got fed up on 
the country and when I wasn’t more than a kid 
I left home and started life as a cash girl. And 
I’m still in the same store. I’m a buyer now, 
but I don’t save any more money than I did 
hollering ‘ ca-a-sh’. Every time I go off on a 
trip I come back home dead broke and usually 
in a day coach. Of course the management al¬ 
lows me expense money but I spend it all on 
shows. I’m just naturally crazy about a show.” 

“ Cinemas? ” 

“You mean movies? Not on your life — 
speakies. I go to a movie when there is noth¬ 
ing else doing or I can’t raise the necessary 
dough for the legit. Of course that happens 
right often and then I patronize the cheap 
second run houses. I got to keep going or I 
might as well be back on the farm, and if I 


11 


Masquerading Mary 

go there now there won’t be any place for me 
to go when I get old. I ain’t so young now, 
but I’m too young to be buried alive. My 
folks live in a great railroad center; twenty 
miles from three stations. ’Tain’t as bad as it 
used to be since Henry Ford put us on the 
map, but it is still bad enough. Give me the 
city, I say, even if the city is no larger than 
Richmond. At least there are jitneys and elec¬ 
tric lights and you can get a steam heated room 
with the privilege of the bath so that Saturday 
night doesn’t mean any more in your young 
life than any other night.” 

“But why should it?—No, no, don’t tell 
me! I am not going to be the kind of for¬ 
eigner who is always asking questions. I am 
going to find out by listening. A steam heated 
room sounds very delightful. I am wondering 
if I might not procure a room in the same 
house — a small room with the privilege of a 
bath? ” 

The friendly one turned and looked search- 
ingly at her seat mate. She was pretty, ex¬ 
ceedingly pretty, with a royal bearing. Her 
hair was black and as fine as that of a blond 
baby. Her brows were arched, extending far 
on the temples. Her eyes were as blue as corn 
flowers, the lashes long and thick. Her nose 


12 Masquerading Mary 

the kind of nose every girl would like to have, 
with thin, sensitive nostrils. Her mouth was 
sweet and sad, and a dimple in one corner gave 
her smile the fraction of a twist. She was 
slender almost to emaciation, and the impression 
she made on her companion was that she had 
been ill and was recently convalescent. 

“ Do you think it would be possible for me 
to get a room in your house?” she repeated, 
not at all nonplused by the searching scrutiny 
but returning the gaze with frank, open eyes. 

“ I ain’t so sure. You see. Miss May, the 
lady that runs our house, is mighty par¬ 
ticular — ” 

“ Ah, so am I — at least — but perhaps I am 
not. I merely want a place to go.” 

“ That’s just it — Miss May ain’t in business 
for her health or anybody else’s health. She 
don’t keep roomers for comp’ny, but she’s 
mighty particular who she rents to and she 
wouldn’t stand for me bringing home a girl I 
just picked up on the train. I tried it once and 
come mighty near losing my happy home. She 
was a pretty little thing, too. How was I to 
know she had more in her past than plenty of 
folks have in their future?” 

“ Of course! I beg your pardon,” and the 
girl drew her slender form closer into the third 


13 


Masquerading Mary 

of the seat, which was all allowed by the ample 
figure of the lady of the streaked hair. She 
closed her eyes wearily. The distension of her 
sensitive nostrils, no doubt intended to express 
haughtiness, and the involuntary trembling of 
the lower lip, made a swift impression on the 
woman by her side. 

“ Aw now, kid, I ain’t meaning to hurt your 
feelings or make you mad. I was just telling 
you about Miss May and how funny she is 
about her roomers. I ain’t a bit particular my¬ 
self. I take up with anybody — ” 

The girl by her side laughed, bit her lip to 
control herself, and then laughed again. 

“ You ought to have let me finish what I 
was saying. Miss May’s ain’t the only shelter 
in Richmond. There are all kinds of homes 
where you can light long enough to look about 
you. Get a job, if that’s what you are after, 
and then Miss May’ll be glad enough to rent 
you a room when I introduce you as a friend 
who already has a room but wants to change. 
Miss May is funny that way. She’s kind of 
leery of anybody without a regular address.” 

“But I — ” 

“Of course you have had an address, but 
just now you haven’t got one. Miss May is a 
great stickler for addresses, especially if a girl 


14 Masquerading Mary 

is young and pretty. And you know, kid, you 
are pretty, at least you will be when you get 
a little more meat on your bones. Been sick? ” 
“ You mean ill? ” 

“ Sure! I remember now that sick means 
seasick to the English. Ill, then? ” 

“ Yes, but I am quite strong and well now, 
and I do want a — position — job. Do you 
think I can get one in Richmond? ” 

“What kind? What can you do? Want to 
go in a shop?” 

“ I rather hoped I might get a situation as 
governess in a good family.” 

“ Perhaps. I don’t think Richmond folks 
have governesses much now-a-days, but some of 
the ultra smart ones might. Anyhow we can 
see. My job brings me in right close contact 
with all of the swell dames in Richmond, at 
least all the fat ones, and they have precious 
few reserves where Effie Sharp Burton is con¬ 
cerned. You see, I’m a corset buyer and fitter, 
and no matter how uppity a woman is when she 
is dressed, she is pretty apt to unbend to her 
corset fitter. I reckon they feel that there is 
no use in putting on airs before Miss Effie. 
They are too dependent on her for slenderizing 
their lines. You just leave it to me, child, to 
find out if there is an opening for a governess 


15 


Masquerading Mary 

in the city of Richmond. If there is, Effie 
Sharp Burton will find it.” 

“And a room, with the privilege of a bath? ” 
“ That too! And now let’s eat. Didn’t you 
bring a lunch with you? ” 

“ Why no, I thought — ” 

“Dining car? There may be one on this 
train, but if there is it is a long walk from 
this coach and little chance of our getting in 
because of the crowd from the Pullman cars. 
They’ll rob you, too. No sirree! When they 
took off the dollar table de hoties, Effie Sharp 
Burton withdrew her patronage from dining 
cars. You don’t catch me paying eighty cents 
for one scrambled egg that wasn’t fit to cook 
any other way. I’ve got plenty for both of us. 
I always bring enough lunch for two because 
I have never seen the time when there wasn’t 
a foolish virgin on this train who had neglected 
to fill her lamp.” 

She produced a box of generous size, filled 
with comfortable looking sandwiches, hard boiled 
eggs, doughnuts, cakes and pickles. 

“ I got an old chum that I stop with in New 
York and she always puts me up a jimdandy 
snack. Poor thing, she can’t eat much herself 
because she’s got a job in a swell shop trying 
on clothes—a cloak model — and she has to 


16 Masquerading Mary 

keep her figure to a perfect thirty-six or lose her 
job. I wouldn’t be her for a pretty. I been 
advising her to cut loose and eat all she craves 
and go get a place with the stylish stouts. As 
for me,” she declared, helping herself to another 
thick sandwich, “ it’s up to me to eat all I 
want and keep myself up to my accustomed 
forty-six. You see, in this day and generation 
mighty few but fat women wear corsets, and 
they tell me they don’t like any slender young 
person getting on to their curves. The truth of 
the matter is, the thin young ones ain’t got a 
bit of sympathy for the fat old ones. Now 
me — I’ve been thin and I’ve got fat and I 
got kind feelings for all sizes.” 

“ I believe you really and truly have,” said 
her companion fervently. “ I can’t tell you 
how grateful I am to you for your kindness to 
me, one of the thin ones.” 

“ Oh, sucks! That’s nothing. Here, have 
another doughnut. I think you are good to 
listen to my running on so. Part of my busi¬ 
ness is running on. My customers expect it. I 
give you my word, if I ain’t gassing in a steady 
stream they are sure to say Miss Effie’s got a 
grouch or something. You wouldn’t think it, 
but it’s mighty important for a customer to 
laugh some while she’s being fitted or she 


17 


Masquerading Mary 

might get fitted so’s she couldn’t laugh and I 
tell you that would be no laughing matter.” 

The girl by her side laughed and leaned back 
comfortably in the seat. There was a little color 
in her pale cheeks now, produced no doubt by 
the combination of nourishing food and the 
wholesome geniality of Effie Sharp Burton. 

“ Got all you want? Well, I might as well 
save the pieces. We might want another bite 
before we get to Richmond.” 

She busied herself replacing what was left 
of the food, after having pressed a sandwich on 
the bald headed man across the aisle and a 
doughnut on a tired mother whose crying baby 
had at last dropped asleep. 

“ One time I attended a course of lectures in 
psychology — but maybe you are fed up on so 
much talk. Just say the word if you want me 
to quit.” 

“ Oh, please don’t! I love to hear you talk.” 

“ Well, I like to hear myself right smart — 
anyhow I been trying ever since to use what 
little I learned in selling corsets. It works 
pretty well. I reckon many a fat Richmond 
woman, when I get through with her, has for¬ 
gotten she is fat just because I put her on the 
track of not thinking fat. Another thing, I 
have my fitting room lined with becoming mir- 


18 Masquerading Mary 

rors — I mean the kind that slim you down 
a bit. I had a terrible time getting them and 
the boss and I mighty near came to the parting 
of the ways because I made myself so numerous 
on the subject. But I won out. Of course 
my fat customers don’t know about my psychic 
looking glasses but they buy more corsets 
from me because of them. Maybe you think 
I oughtn’t to fool the poor things that way, 
but I say it’s not a sin to make folks feel happy. 
I’d make the glasses’ rosy if it’d do any good. 
I do have pink shades on the lights. Do you 
think that kind of deception is wrong? ” 

The seat mate did not answer. Her eyes 
were closed and as Miss Effie Sharp Burton 
turned to discover the reason the girl’s sleepy 
head nodded involuntarily and sought the com¬ 
fortable shoulder of her neighbor. 

“Well, well! If I haven’t talked the poor 
child to sleep,” Miss Effie said to herself, slip¬ 
ping a plump arm around the tired girl, en¬ 
deavoring to make her more comfortable. 
“ Poor, pretty, little thing. She’s mighty 
friendly for an English girl, snuggling up to 
me with her head on my shoulder. Most Eng¬ 
lish don’t forget themselves enough even in their 
sleep to be friendly with us plain Americans. 
And bless Bob! I don’t even know her name.” 


CHAPTER II 


“All out for Richmond!” sang a man at 
one end of the coach, and “ All out for Rich¬ 
mond!” echoed a man at the other end. 

Mtss Effie Sharp Burton had dozed fitfully, 
her head resting against the dingy plush of the 
day coach. Her shoulder ached and her arm 
had gone to sleep, but she had bravely endured 
the discomfort so that the tired girl by her side 
might have unbroken slumber. 

“Wake up, honey, here we are! This is 
Richmond.” 

“Richmond! Oh! You mean we are there, 
and I have slept all the way? How could I? 
And did I make a pillow of you without so 
much as by your leave? Please forgive me, 
Miss Burton. I don’t see how I could have 
been so selfish. I wanted to hear all about the 
fat women, too, but I must have dropped off 
in the midst of it. I know your shoulder is 
numb.” 

“ Never mind all that. My side will be all 
right and I’m glad you got some sleep. I’ll 

19 


20 Masquerading Mary 

continue in our next about my fat customers. 
Now we must get a porter to help us out with 
our grips and call us a taxi. You don’t know" 
yet where you are going, I reckon? Hotels 
are mighty dear if you are hard up. Gee, I 
wish Miss May wasn’t so particular and I’d take 
you right home with me. Well, no matter 
where you are going you’ve got to go. So let’s 
beat it. Sorry you get your first look at Rich¬ 
mond from this down town station, but this one 
g. m. train seems to fancy arriving at this end 
of town. There’s a masher — don’t look at him. 
It’s a good thing old Effie is along. However, 
I’m glad we saw that would-be lady’s man, be¬ 
cause now I know what I’ll do. I been mak¬ 
ing donations for years to the Travelers’ Aid 
and never yet had a chance to get even with 
’em. There’s the T. A. lady now. She sure 
is on her job. Look how she’s squelching that 
masher! ” 

The girl, in a daze, followed the capable Miss 
Effie, who had procured a porter and directed 
him to go ahead and hold a taxi. Her inter¬ 
view with the kindly woman at the Travelers’ 
Aid desk was thoroughly satisfactory. A work¬ 
ing girls’ home was called on the telephone and 
a bed guaranteed. 

“ What name?” was the only question asked. 


21 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Mary — Mary Hill,” answered the girl. 

" Miss Mary Hill? You see this home doesn’t 
take married women,” said the kindly employee 
of the Travelers’ Aid. 

“ Yes, Miss Mary Hill, English governess,” 
put in Miss Effie, a determined gleam in her 
eye. 

“ Have you a trunk? ” 

“ A box? Yes — a very large one I am 
afraid.” 

“ That’s all right. Give me your check and 
I’ll see that it gets to you.” 

“ I can’t tell you how kind I think you are.” 

“ Of course she is,” bustled Miss Effie Sharp 
Burton. “ Being kind is part of her job. Come 
on! Taxi has begun to chug and we’d better 
be moving.” 

“ Now this is Main Street,” she continued 
as the chauffeur settled his car comfortably in 
the trolley tracks and speeded up the deserted 
street, feeling perfectly safe from traffic cops at 
the early hour of one. “ I reckon you’ve read 
the so-called great American novel: ‘ Main 
Street’? It’s supposed to be typical of all 
American towns. Maybe so, but I can’t see it. 
Anyhow it ain’t true of Richmond. Plenty of 
stupid narrowness here, I’ll admit, but lots of 
kindness and sweetness. I tell you I know, be- 


22 Masquerading Mary 

cause I’ve been down and out here and folks 
have been good to me. I don’t know anything 
about Mr. Sinclair Lewis as a home-body. He 
may be a kind gentleman and a good provider 
but I’d hate to be in his spectacles and see 
‘ Main Streets 9 in all of my travels. Funny I 
hadn’t even found out your name, Miss Hill. 
I meant to ask you before you went to sleep 
on me.” 

“ I should have told you, but I have been in 
a daze since I landed. What would have hap¬ 
pened to me if you had not been sitting by me 
on the train. You have been so kind. I won¬ 
der if you will be still kinder and call me 
Mary.” 

“ Sure, if you will call me Effie.” 

The taxi jerked its wheels from the trolley 
track and turned down a broad, quiet street of 
comfortable looking houses. 

“ This is your street. The folks in Richmond 
sigh over this street and say it has seen better 
days. That is because it is kinder gone away 
to boarding houses, but I say that boarders are 
human beings and they might as w r ell have a 
nice, broad street with magnolia trees on it as 
rich people who own their homes. The river is 
over yonder, the historic Jeemes; and there is 
a nice park at the end of the street with a 


23 


Masquerading Mary 

monument to John Smith, who is supposed to 
have landed there. But here we are! This is 
the place. I’m not going to get out because 
I must get a move on me and go to my downy 
or I won’t be fit to fit corsets to-morrow. Here’s 
my card. You come to see me as soon as you 
get rested up. I’m going to see that you get a 
job teaching the young idea how to shoot. 
S’pose you blow in the shop sometime to-morrow 
at lunch time — one o’clock. I’ll be there. Up 
one flight and anybody will direct you to the 
corset department. Ask for Miss Effie and 
you’ll get quick service. Good-bye, Mary! ” 

“Good-bye, Effie!” and the girl threw her 
arms as far around her new found friend as 
Miss Burton’s dimensions permitted, and kissed 
her. She could not help a sob escaping her 
as she did so, but the sob was followed by a 
sad little laugh and: “Good-bye until to¬ 
morrow, my best and only friend in these United 
States.” 

Before Mary could ring, the door was opened 
by a woman in whose countenance sleep warred 
with hospitality. In a loud, hoarse whisper she 
bade her welcome and cautioned her to make no 
noise. 

“ Your bed’s ready and all you gotta do 
is slip right into it. Two of the young ladies 


24 Masquerading Mary 

in that dormitory will be getting up in about 
two hours to go on a early morning shift. I 
hope they won’t disturb you. They are sure to, 
though, if you disturb them. Young ladies are 
mighty vindicertive, ’specially them working on 
irreg’lar shifts.” 

Mary expressed her regrets at having to rouse 
anyone at that hour of the night, but was as¬ 
sured that it was all in the day’s work, and 
that a job was a job and if one was employed 
in a home for young working ladies and there 
happened to be arrivals at unearthly hours, then 
no matter how sleepy one might be it was up 
to one to get out of a nice warm bed and be 
hospitable. 

“ We are paid to be pleasant and pleasant 
we must be,” she yawned. “ No’m, I ain’t the 
reg’lar matron. I am substitootin’, but it pays 
to be pleasant anyhow because this institootion 
is run by a board of lady managers and there 
ain’t ever any telling when a board of lady 
managers will fall out with itself and the matron 
will have to resign with the minority. That 
being the case I might get a reg’lar position. 
Anyhow, it pays to be pleasant and friendly¬ 
like.” She yawned again prodigiously and shiv¬ 
ered so that her many curl-papers trembled. 

“A cold coming on from getting out of my 


25 


Masquerading Mary 

warm bed,” she said, drawing her dingy grey 
blanket wrapper more closely around her. Mary 
could but reiterate how sorry she was. 

The bed that awaited her proved to be in a 
room that had six other cots occupied by six 
sleeping girls. 

“ Better undress in the hall so’s not to dis¬ 
turb the young ladies,” the substitute matron 
suggested. “Bath rooms, three of them, at the 
end of the hall, down one turn. Good night!” 
and she waddled down stairs again, her bed¬ 
room slippers flapping on every step and her 
dingy dressing gown trailing after her. 

Remembering the warning her hostess had 
given her of the vindictiveness of those on ir¬ 
regular shifts, Mary undressed in cautious si¬ 
lence in the dimly lit upper hall. An old square 
piano, that had been donated to the home by 
one of the members of the board, served as an 
impromptu dressing table. The upper hall, 
which was fortunately quite spacious, was lined 
with useless things given to the institution by 
its well wishers. There were two hatracks, a 
billiard table, a broken sofa and three wash- 
stands. Mary slipped into her bed without dis¬ 
turbing the six sleepers. 

The bed w r as clean, although both mattress 
and pillow were a little lumpy. The room was 


26 Masquerading Mary 

large, but hardly large enough to accommodate 
seven cots, three bureaus, two wardrobes and 
a sprinkling of odd chairs, to say nothing of 
an array of trunks and suit cases. A glow 
from a street light, sifting through the opened 
windows, illumined the apartment sufficiently 
for the newcomer to get a general idea of the 
furnishings as well as the individual tastes of 
her sleeping roommates in regard to hair, 
hygiene and complexions. Several of the girls 
had their heads almost under cover, with nothing 
showing but bristling curl papers or steel 
crimpers. And where a nose had come out for 
air it shone forth with cold cream high lights. 
Near the window was a curly head, bobbed and 
red, framing a childlike face. In the next cot 
a fat girl lay on her back with mouth wide 
open. The snore she snored was a mighty one. 

“The kind of snore Jove might have snored 
when he nodded,” thought Mary. 

Another girl coughed fitfully in her sleep 
and yet another talked in her’s with foolish in¬ 
coherence. 

Sleep, on Miss Effie Sharp Burton’s shoulder, 
had been sweet and sound, and now Mary Hill, 
would-be governess in a good family, found her 
eyes propped open with no intention of sleep¬ 
ing and her brain more active than it had been 


27 


Masquerading Mary 

for many days. She really felt refreshed and 
not the least bit sleepy. 

“ I must think, I must think!” she said to 
herself, but she had been saying that ever since 
she left England and her tired brain had re¬ 
fused to think. Now, lying on this bumpy bed 
— where no doubt a few corn cobs had got 
mixed with the corn shucks — with her head on 
a pillow that felt as though it had been stuffed 
wdth the tail feathers of a turkey, and with six 
other noisily sleeping females lying by her; in 
a strange house, in a strange city, suddenly her 
brain began to function. Her past presented 
itself to her in a series of clear-cut pictures 
vignetted on the tablets of her memory. She 
saw her childhood in Ireland w T ith the gay Irish 
mother and more sedate English father; girl¬ 
hood in the select boarding school with the 
occasional highly prized holidays and treats; 
her mother’s death. Then the war, changing 
boys and girls into men and women, sometimes 
into old men and old women. Her father’s 
death w r hile she was still at school. After the 
war, England staggering to normalcy. So¬ 
ciety reasserting itself. Snobbishness again to 
the fore. Heroes without jobs. A London 
season with hectic rushing from one form of 
social function to another; dinners, balls, recep- 


28 Masquerading Mary 

tions under the wing of a hateful old woman. 

Something connected with the thought of this 
old woman made the girl laugh. All un¬ 
conscious of her surroundings, she laughed 
aloud. It was the same clear, lilting laugh 
that had so impressed Miss Effie Sharp Burton. 
Strange it sounded here, ringing out above the 
noise of snoring and breathing. 

“ Aw cheese it, you gumps! This ain’t no 
time for jokes,” muttered one of the disgruntled 
sleepers. “ I’ll be having to get up in less than 
an hour and then you can laugh all you’ve a 
mind to, but for Pete’s sake let a poor working 
girl get her hard earned rest.” 

“ Oh, I beg pardon.” 

“Aw, shut up! This ain’t no time for play 
acting either — 4 Beg pawdon’,” the complain¬ 
ant mocked. 

Mary smothered another laugh, and strangely 
comforted by the human intercourse estab¬ 
lished with one of her room mates, she sank 
into a sweet and normal sleep, forgetting for 
the time everything connected with her past life. 
She was drowsily conscious of being in a home 
for self-supporting girls, sleeping in the room 
with six others, a fat girl snoring, a thin girl 
coughing and a grouchy one grumbling. She 
knew that in a short while some of those girls 


Masquerading Mary 29 

must get up for an early morning shift. What 
an early morning shift was she was not sure, 
but she was glad she did not have to go on 
it, if it happened to be something on which 
one went, especially since it came at early 
morning. 


CHAPTER III 


She was awakened by a light flashing in her 
face and the sound of a window being closed. 
It was the early shifters who must remove their 
curl papers, wipe off the cleansing cream, go 
through a profunctory washing, rub in the 
vanishing cream, bring into play lip stick and 
eyebrow pencil, sparingly apply carmine and 
then powder with such lavish puffs that the 
air was filled with the strongly scented cosmetic 
and the thin girl with the cough almost 
strangled. 

“ Now look what you done, Tillie,” gurgled 
the fat girl, sitting up in bed, thereby making 
the springs creak ominously. “ You ain’t 
called on to wake up everybody in the house, 
but that ain’t what’s eatin’ me. It’s sprinkling 
that powder around until poor little Min’s got 
it in her lungs. The kid’s got enough in her 
pipes without your stuffing them up with that 
old smelly pink powder.” 

i 1 *‘Aw, cheese it, Maggie Cross! Anybody 
that’ll sleep on her back all night, tooting and 
30 


31 


Masquerading Mary 

snorting like a truck in low, has got no room 
for calling anybody down. I’d a moved around 
quieter if somebody hadn’t laughed out in the 
night — laughed out louder than your snore 
and Min’s cough. If I was sure which one it 
was I’d cold pig her if it gets me late to my 
switch. I been telling all of you that Gertie 
and I will get up and out of here without a 
sound if you’ll keep quiet and leave us get 
some sleep; but if you go gurgling and snort¬ 
ing and snuffling and coughing and laughing 
out in the night, then good-bye morning snooze 
for you.” 

The foregoing tirade was delivered in a loud, 
raucous whisper by Tillie, a handsome enough 
young person now that she had gone through 
the rites of removing curl papers, cold cream 
and flannelette nightgown. She now appeared 
with a wonderfully hennaed and crimped chig¬ 
non, and her face was made up after the pre¬ 
vailing mode — round blotches of rouge high on 
her cheek bones, eyebrows plucked to a hair 
line and penciled sharply, a marshmallow nose 
and lips redder than a veritable blood-sucking 
vampire of phrase and fable. Her dress was 
a one piece black jersey, fitting the form al¬ 
most as snugly as a stocking fits the leg, broken 
in its severity by a red leather belt and a string 


32 Masquerading Mary 

of red beads wrapped twice around her neck 
and hanging below her waist. Gertie, the com¬ 
panion in the misery of early shifting, was a 
somewhat drab replica of Tillie, not so much 
rouge, hair more natural in color, powder more 
sparingly applied and one piece dress a bit 
more roomy. Gertie’s beads, however, were 
quite up to the model in brilliancy and length, 
and her belt had the added feature of innu¬ 
merable little knotted leather strings which hung 
all around the girl’s slender hips as though in 
readiness for the scalps of possible victims. 

By this time the occupant of every cot was 
awake, some of them grumbling, some of them 
merely amused by the dashing Tillie. The new¬ 
comer had remained quiet, not knowing what 
the etiquette was in a crowded dormitory of a 
boarding home for self-supporting girls. She 
had determined to confess to the laughter if 
anything more was said about a cold pig, what¬ 
ever that might be. No one had noticed her 
presence and she devoutly hoped that the early 
shifters would depart before she was discovered. 
But fate had ordained otherwise. 

The girl with the short red curls, whose cot 
was between Maggie Cross and the window, 
sat up in bed with a scowl on her pretty baby 
face. 


33 


Masquerading Mary 

“ You girls give me a pain, hateful old 
grouches! ” she screamed out like an angry 
child. “Dogs in the manger! Pills! I’m 
gonter report you to the Board. When Mrs. 
Rogers got me in this place she told me any¬ 
thing I didn’t like just report to her. And 
they tell me she’s the Board—at least the 
person on it with most ’fluence. I’m gonter tell 
her how you paint and powder and dye your 
hair and how you get up in the morning and 
wake up all the girls.” 

“Aw, shut up, angel face!” said Tillie 
scornfully. “ The only reason you don’t dye 
your hair is because it’s already red. When 
the style changes you’ll get busy. And you 
don’t paint and powder because the country on 
you hasn’t rubbed off yet. You sleep six in a 
room a little longer and you’ll see what’ll hap¬ 
pen to your pink and whiteness. As for that 
old busy-body, Mrs. Rogers, just tell her for 
me she’d best be looking after her own daughter. 
She don’t get up at five and wake folks up — 
she just stays up ’til five and goes through the 
streets with a bunch of society rough necks 
raising Hail Columbia. I reckon I know, be¬ 
cause I’ve seen ’em riding up Franklin Street 
on their way home when I’m on my way to 
work. She lays on paint with a trowel and 


34 Masquerading Mary 

powder with a shovel. But I reckon she has to 
do that to save her face — the poor innocent 
rich girl! You go with complaints before any 
board and I’ll come along and hand ’em a few. 
Mrs. Rogers may be on a board but I’ve been 
on a switchboard at a hotel. There are two 
things a hello operator has gotter have and 
that’s good ears and a good memory. I got 
both, and what I heard over the wire at the 
hotel I remember, and Miss Josephine Rogers 
was on one end of the wire. I had it in for 
the old dame ever since she came butting in 
down here and had what she called a heart to 
heart talk with us girls, telling us what a crime 
it was for us to buy ourselves silk stockings. 
I up and asked her who did she expect to buy 
’em for us.” 

Mary, who had been intensely interested in 
the wrangle, laughed aloud. Had she thrown 
a bomb in that dormitory of sleepy girls, she 
could not have astonished them more. They 
had gone to bed with the seventh cot empty, and 
to find it occupied, as though by magic, filled 
them with consternation. 

“ Gee, if we ain’t got comp’ny!” exclaimed 
one of the early shifters. 

“ Yes, and she’s the merry little laugher that 
ruined my beauty sleep,” said Tillie. “ I swore 


35 


Masquerading Mary 

I’d cold pig her, but I reckon I can’t without 
an introduction. What’s your name, kid? ” 
“My word! Perhaps I’d better not tell you. 
It might serve in lieu of a formal introduction 
and the cold pigging would be mine. I am 
so sorry I laughed aloud in the night, but — ” 
“ English, ain’t you? ” 

“ Ye — es.” 

“ Oh, then I reckon I’ll have to forgive the 
laugh in the night. It might have been a joke 
you heard last month that you just caught on to. 
Put us wise, kid. Tell us the merry jest.” 

But time was flying and Tillie must postpone 
the baiting of the new girl until a more season¬ 
able hour than five in the morning. The light 
was turned off, the window opened again and 
once more the dormitory settled itself to sleep. 

Mary lay quite still and silently took herself 
to task for laughing. She had always laughed 
aloud when amused. No doubt it was a foolish 
habit. The hateful old woman, under whose 
social wing she had once been forced to find 
shelter, had often chided her for that very laugh, 
calling it ill-bred, boisterous, unrefined. Others 
she remembered had loved her laugh, sought her 
out because of it. Hate her or love her, the 
laugh was as much a part of her as eyes or 
nose. If she laughed at all she must laugh 


36 Masquerading Mary 

that way. She wondered that she could laugh at 
all. But then, why not? Were not things just 
as amusing as though her life had not gone to 
pot? What had her own private worries to do 
with the great and eternal risibleness of the uni¬ 
verse? In fact, they made life just so much 
more ludicrous. She smothered another laugh 
in her pillow and pretended to sneeze. Nobody, 
not even the severe and critical Tillie, were she 
present, could blame her for sneezing. 

By seven the whole house was astir. It re¬ 
minded the newcomer of her life in the boarding 
school, although that institution was considered 
one of the most select in the British Isles. But 
girls are sisters under the skin, and those high 
born and carefully reared English maidens were 
wont to lotee their stockings and borrow hairpins 
without the formality of asking, just as were 
these American working girls. The break¬ 
fast gong was the controlling force for one as 
for the other. The bathrooms and mirrors were 
the points where the battle raged most furi¬ 
ously. There was much pounding on the doors 
of the former and much pushing and crowding 
for a place in front of the latter. Mary thought 
wistfully of Miss Effie Sharp Burton’s “privi¬ 
lege of the bath.” She asked the good-natured 
and fat Maggie Cross if she thought it probable 


Masquerading Mary 37 

that she might get in a bathroom before break¬ 
fast. 

“ Sure, just wait a minute. Those girls in 
there are only cat-washing themselves — I mean 
licking around with a rag. They are all once-a- 
weekers. They wear out more basins than they 
do tubs. Their big time is Saturday night. 
There! What did I tell you? Both of us can 
slip in here and you can take a dip while I use 
the basin with a lick and a promise. My advice 
to you is get it over with in five minutes or 
you’ll get the name of being a bathroom hog. 
Don’t mind me, kiddo. I’ll keep my back 
turned. If you stay in too long somebody is 
liable to crawl in on you under the door. I 
say it was a shame to leave such a space under 
the doors. One time a swell who had seen bet¬ 
ter days came here to board and had the gall 
to demand a private bath. We gave her to 
understand that none of the baths were private 
below the knee. There’s one thing that don’t 
go here, and that is airs.” 

Mary was grateful that she did not have to 
take a bath in the presence of all six of her 
roommates. The kindly Maggie kept her back 
religiously turned, and in the prescribed five 
minutes the two were prepared to open the 
door to the clamoring line outside. Having 


38 Masquerading Mary 

bathed in company, dressing in company was 
not so bad as it might have been, although 
some of the girls were not so thouhtful as 
Maggie Cross and gazed critically at her 
lingerie. 

“ My grandmother is English,” said one, “ but 
she says all English people wear shimmies. You 
don’t.” 

Mary laughed. “ Perhaps not all.” 

“ Maybe your grandmother ain’t so hightoned 
as some,” suggested another, deliberately help¬ 
ing herself to one of Mary’s hairpins. 

“ Hightoned,” protested the first speaker, 
“why my grandmother is a high up English 
lady. Anybody could tell that by the way she 
handles her aitches. I’ve heard that was an 
unfailing sign, and Granny drops hers one place 
and sticks ’em on another as pretty as any 
duchess.” 

At this bit of family history, Mary smothered 
her bubbling laugh. 


CHAPTER IV 


The dining room accommodated fifty per¬ 
sons. Three long narrow tables were ranged 
in a row, with chairs so closely placed as to fur¬ 
nish scant elbow room to the guests, and no 
room between the tables for a servant. What 
service there was must be given from the outer 
sides and ends. Mary kept close to her bath¬ 
room friend, Maggie Cross. Remembering her 
dear Effie Sharp Burton, she decided her pa¬ 
tron saint was without doubt a fat one, for in 
less than twelve hours the two persons who had 
befriended her were, to say the least, plump. 

Food, the like of which she had never seen or 
smelled, was being borne in on great trays by 
a grinning, slovenly, colored maid. Behind her 
came a colored boy whom the board of lady 
managers dignified in their reports by the title 
of butler. His duty at breakfast was to pour 
steaming black coffee into awaiting cups of 
heavy stone china. 

“ I thought I smelt buckwheat cakes and 
sossage,” exclaimed Maggie Cross, gleefully, as 
39 


40 Masquerading Mary 

a plate with a stack of three large brown cakes 
topped with two sausages was placed in front 
of her. “ There’s nothing like ’em for smell¬ 
ing, unless’n it’s eating. Pass the maple syrup, 
you down there. Start the butter, too.” 

Mary watched her companion spread butter 
on and between the stacked cakes and then pour 
a generous stream of syrup over sausages and 
buckwheats. She watched and then fearfully 
did likewise. The result was better than she had 
expected. She was frankly hungry; hungrier, 
it seemed, than she had ever been. The chairs 
were rapidly filled by girls of all ages from 
seventeen to seventy, at least a few of them 
looked quite that old. However, most of them 
were young and some of them astonishingly 
pretty. The English girl marveled at the 
smartness of their attire. She was sure that in 
England the young women, who lived in board¬ 
ing homes, were not so stylish as these girls. 

The substitute matron, Mrs. Flim, came bus¬ 
tling into the dining room. She looked very 
much as she had in the middle of the night, 
except that the curl papers were hidden by a 
boudoir cap and the dingy grey wrapper had 
given place to a black and white checked bun¬ 
galow apron, though why boudoirs and bunga¬ 
lows should have to answer for those garments 


41 


Masquerading Mary 

is a mystery. Certainly Mrs. Flim had never 
owned a boudoir, nor did she hold for bunga¬ 
lows as she was sure they were damp and had 
once read of one in some East Indian story 
that had a snake in the bathroom. Neverthe¬ 
less, boudoir caps and bungalow aprons were 
that lady’s usual apparel. The reason she 
looked very much as she had in the night was 
that she still had the expression of one who was 
paid to smile. This gesture was a more or less 
painful one, in that she was singularly lacking 
in features. Eyes, nose, mouth, chin and smile 
might have been painted on a stuffed stocking 
heel and would have resembled Mrs. Flim quite 
as much as a rag doll. 

“ Excuse my being late, young ladies, but I 
was up so long in the night. It is my duty 
and I am not complaining — although it is 
very inconvenient to have caught a fresh cold 
in my head.” 

For one with no nose to speak of, no doubt 
it was very inconvenient to have a cold — fresh 
or otherwise. 

“Ah, Miss Hill,” she exclaimed as she saw 
Mary. “ So you are down. I hope you rested 
well. Young ladies, this is Miss Hill, Mary 
Hill. I am sure you will be kind to her and 
help her all you can. She came in the middle 


42 Masquerading Mary 

of the night. I was called up on the phone 
by the Travelers’ Aid lady at the station. Of 
course it is an awkward time for a stranger to 
arrive in Richmond, but it is not my business 
to ask questions — only to be kind. Any ques¬ 
tions must be asked by the Board. By the way, 
young ladies, I hope you have not forgotten 
that the Board meets this morning and it is 
most important to have your beds nicely made 
and all of your things in order. Some of them 
always want to inspect the rooms. While I 
am only substitootin’ as matron, I can’t help 
taking a pride in having the Home make a 
good impression on the Board. Mrs. Rogers 
is most particular — though kind — very kind.” 

Mary could not help wondering whether or 
not Mrs. Rogers was paid for being kind. The 
mention of her name reacted on the breakfasters 
very much as it had on the early shifters. There 
were muttered “ Old Butinsky! ” 44 Queen Snoo¬ 
per! ” and so on. 

4 4 1 spread my bed up and it’s gotta stay that- 
away,” said one. 44 If Mrs. Angelica Belle 
Rogers don’t like it she can lump it.” 

44 Mine’s already lumpy enough,” grumbled 
another. 

44 My things are picked up to suit me.” 

44 Better hide your silk stockings. Angelica 


43 


Masquerading Mary 

B. is great on leg inspection. I wouldn’t be 
surprised if she didn’t make the Board put a 
by-law in their constitution prohibiting us girls 
from wearing silk stockings,” said a middle 
aged woman whose thin, eager face and great, 
hungry, deep-set eyes had attracted Mary’s at¬ 
tention from the first. 

“ She’d better keep her eye on Miss Joseph¬ 
ine Roger’s legs and let ours alone. They do 
say Miss Josephine’s don’t keep to the straight 
and narrow to hurt.” 

“Meouw! Meouw!” caterwauled a small 
saucy person at the far end of the table. Mary 
recognized the curly red-haired one who had 
threatened to report the dashing Tillie to the 
Board of Lady Managers. “ I think Mrs. Rog¬ 
ers is mighty sweet and Miss Josephine is swell 
and stylish. That’s the reason you pick on her.” 

“Listen to teacher’s pet!” cried a beautiful 
black-eyed girl. “ Who said Mrs. Rogers wasn’t 
sweet? And who said Josephine wasn’t stylish? 
Both of them are sweet and both of them are 
stylish, for that matter; but Mrs. Rogers has 
got it in her bean that working girls need more 
watching than playing girls and it’s all wrong. 
Working girls are too busy sleeping and eating 
and making a living to have much time for 
devilment.” 


44 Masquerading Mary 

During the foregoing conversation the maid 
and butler were engaged in serving an endless 
stream of buckwheat cakes and coffee. The 
girls, with few exceptions, attacked the food 
with appetite and expedition. The breakfast 
menu evidently met with general approval. 

“ Gee, I sure do like buckwheat cake morn¬ 
ing,” sighed Maggie Cross, having wheedled a 
second stack from Lucy, the maid. “ I reckon 
it’s a good thing for me we don’t have them 
every day, for with the butter and lasses I’d get 
fat and get a complexion like a nut caramel 
besides. Why is a buckwheat cake like a cater¬ 
pillar? It’s a old one that I read in a joke hook, 
but it’s good all the same. ’Cause it’s the grub 
that makes the butter fly.” 

There were groans and giggles from the 
neighboring breakfasters. “ You can bet on 
Mag. She hands us a chestnut at every meal 
— but she’s a good old scout for all that,” whis¬ 
pered the girl on Mary’s other side. She was 
a pleasant looking person with keen grey eyes 
and a big laughing mouth. 

“ Don’t take what the girls say about Mrs. 
Rogers as gospel truth. They talk that way 
partly to tease Mrs. Flim and partly to see 
how much that little red-headed girl at the 
other end of the table will report on them. She 


Masquerading Mary 45 

makes it her business to tell everything she 
hears. They would not think of criticizing the 
chairman of the Board before the regular ma¬ 
tron, Mrs. Prince. Mrs. Prince would jack 
them up good and proper; but Mrs. Flim is 
soft and too anxious to please all parties. She’s 
a good natured old thing, though. She wouldn’t 
mind if Mrs. Prince’s bronchitis took a turn 
for the worse, however. She’d say it was the 
Lord’s will and fix her face so it could half 
smile and half cry and go before the Board and 
ask for the job. Good-bye! I hope you are go¬ 
ing to like Richmond and the home. It’s a good 
old burg and this place ain’t half bad consid¬ 
ering the money we pay. Fact is, it’s a darn 
sight better than a greasy third class boarding 
house. I’ve lived in both, and I know.” 

Breakfast over, there was a general exit. The 
house was quickly emptied, a few boarders who 
were on night shifts remaining to sleep. Mary 
found one of these in her bed when she went to 
the dormitory with the intention of making up 
her cot so that it might bear the inspection of 
the Board. 

“ ’Scuse me, but somebody was in mine and 
this one looked kinder soft and clean,” apolo¬ 
gized the tired occupant, who dropped to sleep 
before Mary could assure her it was all right, 


46 Masquerading Mary 

although she made a mental note that Mrs. Flim 
must see to it that at least she would not have 
to share sheets with another. 

Mrs. Flim was busily engaged in putting the 
house in order for the expected visitation of the 
Board. The butler and Lucy were lost in 
clouds of dust of their own raising, from which 
they occasionally emerged to indulge in joyous 
repartee, resting on their brooms the while. 

In the course of time the dust settled and was 
wiped from furniture and floors with oily mops 
and rags which gave a spurious shine to every¬ 
thing. Chairs and sofas were pushed and pulled 
into place, shades lowered just enough to hide 
any corners that might have been skipped. Then 
Mrs. Flim disappeared to remove her curl papers 
and change from bungalow apron to the proper 
clothing for a substitute matron to wear when 
the Board was in session. 


CHAPTER V 


During the frenzy of cleaning, Mary took 
refuge in a reading room which opened from 
the living room. It was a quiet place, lined 
with book shelves filled with a heterogeneous 
collection of books placed at random, with no 
order as to size or subject; some of them with 
the backs in, some out, and some piled in the 
manner of old bricks fresh from the hands of 
house wreckers. The hooks in the library had 
no doubt come from the same or similar source 
as the billiard table and the old square piano. 
Most of them were gifts from private homes. 
There were a few new books, at least books 
showing new backs, but the subject matter 
dated principally from “ The Wide, Wide 
World ” and the Elsie books period. All the 
new volumes had been chosen with great care by 
a committee from the Board, with a view, seem¬ 
ingly, of furnishing mental pabulum for morons. 

There were two high, narrow windows draped 
with twisted lace curtains that matched each 
other well in crookedness and dinginess but 
47 


48 Masquerading Mary 

not at all in design. Through the windows 
one could see a side yard with a vista of ash 
cans and garbage pails in the rear. A dreary 
prospect, except for the fact that a brave old 
magnolia tree spread its branches from a neigh¬ 
boring yard, its glossy dark green foliage re¬ 
lieving the general drabness of the outlook. 

In the shelter of the leaning high board 
fence, an occasional daffodil had poked a green 
nose through the hard soil, blackened from a 
century of soft coal soot. By craning one’s 
neck it was possible to catch a glimpse of a bed 
of winter pansies planted quite close to the 
house. And joy of joys, one was in bloom! 
The English girl clasped her hands over her 
breast in an ecstacy of delight. She was trans¬ 
ported in mind and spirit to a library in an 
old English country home. Its walls also were 
lined with shelves, and the shelves filled with 
books both old and new. But every book, from 
the heaviest calf bound tome to the daintiest 
limp leather volume of modern verse, had its 
raison d'etre and its proper place. 

Mary was no longer in the untidy reading 
room in Richmond, Virginia, with its shabby 
curtains and nondescript furnishings; but was 
again in the library at Dorset. She could smell 
the pleasant, faint odor of Spanish leather, feel 


49 


Masquerading Mary 

the deep pile of a blue Chinese rug. She could 
see with her mind's eye the orderly rows of 
books, remembering accurately how they were 
ranged along the shelves. On that lower shelf 
were bound volumes of The Tattler and The 
Spectator, Macauley, Hallam, Carlyle. Higher 
up, the English poets; some of them in rare 
editions. There were the French novels, camou¬ 
flaged in sober bindings. Yes, she could re¬ 
member them all. 

No longer did she look through a dingy lace 
curtain and unwashed pane to a bleak unkempt 
back yard, but French windows opened on an 
English garden, with trim walks and hedges. 
The flower beds were a riot of color, but there 
was an order in the riot. It was February in 
America but in her mind it was late August 
in England. Everything that can bloom in 
August was blooming in that garden. The 
girl drew in deep breaths of the pungent odor 
of marigolds and zinnias. The hot smell of 
petunias combined with tube roses to drown the 
fainter perfume of the monthly roses, but it 
was the roses that came to her in the end, per¬ 
haps because there was always a bowl of them 
on the library table at Dorset. 

She sank into a chair by the window. She 
was remembering — God, how she was remem- 


50 Masquerading Mary 

bering! Crossing the Atlantic, arriving in New 
York, the journey to Richmond, the night in 
a dormitory — all was a dream. The reality 
was this sweet old English country place. Those 
terrible complications had never arisen in her 
life. It was all a mistake. She would awake 
in a moment. Around the corner of the box 
hedge would come her Golden Knight, on his 
boyish face the look of Sir Galahad — only she 
was his quest and not the Holy Grail. She 
closed her eyes. She knew that in a moment he 
would be there. The hateful old woman and 
the insinuating Captain had never told her those 
terrible things about him, her Golden Knight. 
They couldn’t have. This was a horrid night¬ 
mare. She would awaken soon and he and she 
could laugh about it together. Perhaps it 
would be kinder not to tell him she had dreamed 
such things about him. It was wrong to doubt 
him even in her sleep. 

“ Ladies! The meeting will come to order! ” 
Reality was thrust upon poor Mary in the fore¬ 
going command, expressed in a clear, cutting 
voice. In the back of her mind she had been 
dimly conscious of much ringing of a bell and 
a steady hum of voices, but so strong had 
memory held her in its grip that she had 
dreamed on until that loud, determined 


Masquerading Mary 51 

“Ladies!” asserted itself from the adjoining 
room. 

The hum of voices ceased and Mary dropped 
back on the western hemisphere with a thud. 

“We can wait no longer for Miss Elizabeth 
Somer,” the voice continued. “It is past the 
time for our board meeting.” 

“ It is not quite ten o’clock,” objected a 
fresh, youthful voice. 

“ My watch says five after, and I am never 
wrong. The meeting will come to order. I 
will lead in prayer.” 

Mary bowed her head in automatic reverence, 
although it was with difficulty that she re¬ 
strained that bubbling laugh that was ever get¬ 
ting her into trouble. The prayer was elo¬ 
quent and oratorical. In it Mrs. Angelica 
Belle Rogers condescendingly informed the Al¬ 
mighty of the aims and aspirations of the Board 
of Lady Managers of the Home for Working 
Girls. True, she concealed her condescension 
under the cloak of oft repeated “ Thou know- 
est,” but her tone implied that His knowledge 
was gained only through her efficient publicity. 
Blessings were called down on the home and 
its inmates, spoken of sometimes as “ Thy 
cheeldren,” sometimes as “ our fair young 
seesters, for our seesters they are, O God, al- 


52 Masquerading Mary 

though our walks of life may he far apart.” 
Especial blessings and appreciation was asked, 
even demanded, for the lady managers whose 
untiring efforts, charity and unselfishness made 
possible the carrying on of “ this, Thy work.” 
The matrons, regular and substitute, were re¬ 
membered; lauded for their good work and 
chided and forgiven in one breath for any mis¬ 
takes they might have made in conducting the 
affairs of housekeeping. “ They are but mor¬ 
tal,” she said tolerantly, “ as are we all,” though 
this she added as an afterthought. 

“ And finally and lastly, O God, bless this 
Thy cheild, the unworthy Chairman of the 
Board. Have mercy on her frailities, which no 
doubt are many.” Here there was a pause 
which seemed to the listening Mary to be left 
in case anyone wished to take issue with her 
as to the existence of said frailities. There was 
only a slight cough from some member of the 
board and a rustling as of shifting positions, 
then the speaker continued: 

“ But remember, Father, that the heat and 
burden of the day has been borne by one little 
woman — remember her zeal in this, Thy work. 
Remember her courage in starting this project, 
her untiring devotion in carrying on the under¬ 
taking in the face of opposition and rebellion, 


53 


Masquerading Mary 

her triumphant success in spite of division and 
secession. There have been times when the task 
has seemed too great, times when she has been 
tempted to loose her hand from the plough, 
times when her hand alone could guide this ship 
of young and unprotected maidens between the 
Scylla of debt and the Charybdis of a tag day. 
But all that has passed. No longer do we 
have to report a deficit.” Here there was a 
decided rustling and a cough suggesting a 
protest. Mary thought perhaps it was the 
treasurer, who may have felt that her province 
was being encroached upon. 

“ Truly,” the voice went on, “ it might be 
said of Thy servant: 4 She hath done what she 
couldn’t ! 9 ” 

Before the listener could clap her hand over 
her mouth a low delicious laugh escaped. It 
was heard but faintly because of the rustling 
of draperies and shuffling of feet as the presi¬ 
dent pronounced a solemn “Amen,” and the 
members allowed themselves to relax into a 
meeting of the board. The entrance of Miss 
Elizabeth Somer also served to detract the at¬ 
tention of the ladies from the unmistakable 
sound of amusement that had broken on their 
ears. Somebody had certainly laughed. There 
was much whispering and questioning as to who 


54 Masquerading Mary 

the guilty party was, but the meeting was 
again called to order by the able Mrs. Rogers. 
The minutes of the preceding meeting were 
read by the recording secretary, who turned out 
to be no less a person than Miss Somer. Mary 
gathered that Miss Somer must be somebody, 
since there had been a question of awaiting her 
arrival before proceeding with the business of 
the board. Miss Somer’s voice was deep *and 
commanding. She read the minutes almost as 
though she were intoning a service. The fact 
that a motion had been made and seconded, 
discussed, amended and finally tabled, was en¬ 
dowed with a mysterious and almost religious 
significance by the sonorous reading of the 
recording secretary. 

“You have heard the minutes of the preced¬ 
ing meeting. Are there any corrections ? ” 
There was an ominous pause. Could it be that 
there breathed a woman brave enough to cor¬ 
rect Miss Elizabeth Somer? “ If not, they stand 
approved.” 

Next the treasurer’s report — a jumbled ac¬ 
count of frenzied finance in which the person 
on whom the office of treasurer had been forced 
seemed hopelessly involved. But she came forth 
with flying colors, in the end declaring: 

“ Anyhow, the home’s got five hundred and 


55 


Masquerading Mary 

thirty dollars and thirty-three cents in the bank, 
and all the bills are paid till next time. I 
fancy that’s more than can be said of any 
of us.” 

There was a general laugh as she finished her 
report and the presiding officer rapped sharply 
for order. It was evident that Angelica Belle 
Rogers brooked no levity at a board meeting. 
Mary liked the voice of the treasurer, and felt 
sure she was young and attractive. 

Next there was a vapid discussion about the 
tuning of a piano. Word had come to Mrs. 
Rogers from some mysterious source, which she 
did not feel at liberty to divulge, that there 
was much complaint among the girls in regard 
to the piano. 

“ If they don’t like it, lock it up and let 
them do without a piano,” broke in Miss Somer. 
“ It is a perfectly good piano, plenty good 
enough. I, for one, am opposed to coddling 
these girls too much. Are they accustomed to 
pianos in the homes from which they come?” 

“ Why, yes, some of them are, I am sure,” 
spoke the gentle voice, “ otherwise how did 
they learn to play? We have several girls who 
really play very well. One of them plays 
charming dance music.” 

“ExactlyI” boomed Miss Somer. “Dance 


56 Masquerading Mary 

music! If you would listen to me you would 
have no dancing in this boarding home. While 
I do not disapprove of dancing generally, I 
highly disapprove of permitting these young 
persons to indulge in a pastime so frivolous when 
they should be turning their thoughts to higher 
things. ,, 

“ Oh, come, Lizzie, let the poor girls kick up 
now and then.” It was the voice of the treas¬ 
urer. “ Besides, the piano has to be tuned be¬ 
cause it is necessary for the accompaniments 
when we have the song service on Sunday after¬ 
noon.” After all, perhaps the treasurer was 
not young since she seemed to be addressing 
Miss Elizabeth Somer as Lizzie. 

“ That’s just like you, Puss Johnston. You 
always take the soft side. You have the repu¬ 
tation of spoiling husbands, children, cooks and 
dogs. Now you want to spoil these working 
girls. For my part I do not think one needs 
a piano in such perfect tune for the singing 
of hymns.” 

Mary caught her laugh this time before it 
escaped her. 

Mrs. Rogers again rapped for order and 
coldly commanded that speakers address the 
chair. 

Puss Johnston, who was no doubt Mrs. 


57 


Masquerading Mary 

Johnston, since it appeared that she spoiled hus¬ 
bands, now moved that the piano be tuned. The 
motion was seconded and carried unanimously 
except for Miss Somer’s booming “No!” 

“ I know of a piano tuner who will come in 
the evening after his working hours and do 
the job cheap for us,” suggested one. 

“ If you will permit the chair to speak,” 
said Mrs. Rogers, “ that will never do.” When¬ 
ever Mrs. Rogers said “ if you will permit the 
chair to speak ” it meant that she was out of 
the chair for good and on the floor. 

“ It will never do to have a man working 
around the place when the girls are at home. 
Our duty is to protect these little girls and put 
no temptation in their way.” 

“Nonsense, Angy!” again the voice of Miss 
Somer. “ It is a well-known fact that piano 
tuners are always tottering old men. He would 
be perfectly safe in this house full of young 
persons at any hour of the day or night.” 

“ I was not thinking of the safety of the 
old man,” answered the chair. 

“ But all piano tuners are not old,” said one. 
“ I have just finished reading Rita Coventry 
and in that novel there is a piano tuner who is 
quite young and so fascinating he gets ahead 
of all the men and carries off the vamp.” 


58 Masquerading Mary 

“Ladies! Ladies!” rapped Mrs. Rogers. 
“ Come to order! We are here to discuss facts, 
not fiction. It has been moved and seconded, 
and the motion carried, that we have the piano 
tuned. Tuning a piano necessitates a piano 
tuner whether old or young, and what hour he 
will come rests with your Chairman — who is 
quite willing to attend to all such details for 
the good of this enterprise. The matter is 
closed. We shall now proceed with business. 
I regret to report that Mrs. Prince is still ab¬ 
sent from her post of duty. Of course she is 
ill, but she can hardly expect to remain in¬ 
definitely in the employ of the home while she 
takes her ease.” 

“Madame President!” 

“ Puss — Mrs. Johnston? ” 

This time Puss Johnston’s voice was not so 
soft. It had a determined note at which hus¬ 
bands and children, servants and dogs, would 
no doubt have been startled. 

“ I have been to see Mrs. Prince and found 
her still suffering intensely with bronchitis. She 
is better, but not yet able to be up and about. 
In view of the faithful and efficient service Mrs. 
Prince has rendered the home, I move that her 
leave of absence be extended until she is per¬ 
fectly well. And since our treasury is in such 


59 


Masquerading Mary 

a healthy state I move that Mrs. Prince’s salary 
be paid her as usual.” 

There were many simultaneous seconds. 

“ Any discussion? ” The tone was that which 
a person might use when in the act of biting 
tenpenny nails. 

“ Of course there is discussion,” boomed Miss 
Somer. “Why should we encourage laziness 
in a hireling, ” 

“Oh, Lizzie! Not laziness! And how can 
you call Mrs. Prince a hireling?” 

“Address the chair!” rapped the President. 
“ Ladies this is an important matter. We 
must remember that we are guardians of funds 
entrusted to us by the public. We must not 
lightly pass a motion to use those funds in 
any way but for the betterment of this home — ” 

“ Exactly! ” broke in Mrs. Johnston. 

“A full discussion is desired, nay, insisted 
upon, by your President.” 

There was silence. Miss Elizabeth Somer 
was in a quandary. She was a chronic opposer 
to every motion, but on the other hand she 
liked nothing better than upsetting the plans 
and policy of Angelica Belle Rogers. It was 
plain to see that Mrs. Rogers was desirous of 
ousting the present matron. Angy Rogers had 
her way to often. She must be disciplined. 


60 Masquerading Mary 

“I withdraw my objection. Question — put 
the question! ” 

The question was put by the enraged presi¬ 
dent, each word a tenpenny nail chewed up and 
spat out. The motion was passed by a full 
throated chorus of “ Ayes.” Then Mrs. Rog¬ 
ers became meek and lowly. This was a sign 
of danger. Mrs. Rogers with a mouth full of 
mush was a more deadly opponent than when 
she was merely biting nails. 


CHAPTER VI 


It was at this juncture, at the moment when 
the chairman of the board was changing from 
nails to mush, from hard to soft, that Mrs. Flim 
was summoned to report as matron. Mary 
could picture the “ paid-to-smile expression ” 
she was no doubt wearing. She only hoped that 
she was no longer clothed in bungalow apron 
and boudoir cap, but had donned more suitable 
attire in which to appear before the august body 
of the Board of Lady Managers. 

“ Yes ma’am, everything is going fine, 
ma’am,” she minced in reply to Mrs. Rogers’ 
gentle request for a full report of the doings 
and happenings of the boarding home. “ No 
ma’m, I don’t have any trouble with the young 
ladies. They treat me fine. Only this morn¬ 
ing they said to me: 4 Oh, Mrs. Flim, we can’t 
bear to think of your leaving us. You are 
just like a mother to us.’ And the young lady 
that came in the night — she was that sorry 
for disturbing me, but I told her that I was 
here to be disturbed, and if I could be the 
61 


62 Masquerading Mary 

means to help a tottering sister, why then it 
would be a jewel in my crown. Of course I 
don’t hold for lone, lorn females arriving in 
strange cities at two o’clock in the morning. It 
looks like something was behind it. Of course 
I ain’t saying there is, but appearances are 
often deceiving. She looks a lady and talks a 
lady, but ladies don’t turn up in Richmond at 
that time of night, waking up everybody and 
not knowing a soul and wanting a job. Of 
course she ain’t a lady, in spite of her having 
a trunk as big as a caboose and a hat box. Yes 
ma’m, she’s English. I reckon she’s a lady’s 
maid and that’s where she got her fine airs.” 

“ A servant! This is a serious matter, Mrs. 
Flim, one we must approach with care and 
diplomacy,” said Mrs. Rogers, her tone losing 
some of its softness and getting back a touch 
of its sharpness. “ The young women of this 
establishment would not brook the inclusion of 
a menial in this, their happy home. You had 
better summon this English person. Of course 
say nothing to her of this.” 

Mary felt the truth of the old saw concerning 
eavesdroppers. Indeed, the fact that she was 
eavesdropping had not occurred to her until 
that moment. If the board wished its pro¬ 
ceedings to be confidential why should a meet- 


63 


Masquerading Mary 

ing be held in a parlor that might be classed 
as public, and with nothing but a flimsy por- 
tierre dividing it from the reading room, which 
was certainly open to the inmates of the home at 
all hours? At any rate it was an awkward 
situation in which to find one’s self. It was no 
laughing matter, but it was with difficulty that 
she refrained from making it such. A lady’s 
maid! Somehow the joke seemed to be on a 
certain disagreeable old woman in England and 
not on her. 

She heard Mrs. Flim calling her: 

“Miss Hill! Miss Hill! Where are you, 
dearie? ” 

She slipped through a door leading into the 
back hall, up the dark back stairs and reached 
the upper hall in time to lean an innocent head 
over the bannister. 

“ You are wanted in the parlor, miss.” 

It was very like being called before the 
faculty of the select boarding school. Mary 
smoothed her countenance as she had often 
enough as a school girl when preparing to win 
over the irate head of the school. On the whole, 
since she was in for it, the girl was rather glad 
of the chance to see the Board of Lady Man¬ 
agers whose voices she had been hearing for 
the last half hour. She had pictured each one 


64 Masquerading Mary 

and was curious to see if her surmises were at 
all correct. As she descended the stairs she 
noted that Mrs. Flim had discarded the bun¬ 
galow apron for a skin tight gown of shiny 
black satin. Her soft and ample figure was 
laced into creaking stays, over the top of which 
the extra fat spilled like dough that had been 
put to rise in too small a vessel. The curl 
papers that the boudoir cap had concealed dur¬ 
ing breakfast had done their work. The re¬ 
sult was a coiffure of puffs and curls, tier on 
tier, of a blue blackness only equalled by the 
satin gown. 

Mary timidly entered the room in the wake 
of Mrs. Flim. After all it was not in the least 
like facing the faculty. Much worse! About 
ten women were seated in a circle. To the 
agitated girl they seemed to he many more, 
but to steady her nerves she counted them and 
including the chairman, secretary and treasurer, 
there were exactly ten. In order to count them 
she must look at them, and finding the majority 
with pleasant, kindly faces, Mary lost some of 
her timidity. The mental pictures she had 
made of the voices were all wrong. Mrs. 
Angelica Belle Rogers she had expected to be 
a small person. If she was not small, why had 
she so repeatedly informed the Almighty of 


65 


Masquerading Mary 

her petiteness? Had she not spoken of her¬ 
self as a little woman who bore the heat and 
burden of the day? Perhaps she was small by 
the side of the heat and burden, but by the 
side of the secretary and treasurer she loomed 
large and impressive. She was handsomely 
dressed, rather too handsomely for a morning 
board meeting, but Mrs. Angelica Belle Rogers 
made it a rule to start out in the morning 
clothed for the day, and her engagement book 
showed two more board meetings, a luncheon at 
the Commonwealth Club in honor of a Hindu 
lecturer, an afternoon bridge party and later 
on a silver tea given for the relief of either 
the Far East or the Near East, she couldn’t re¬ 
member which. What ravages time had made 
on the countenance of Angelica Belle had been 
skillfully obliterated by beauty doctors. Ac¬ 
cording to her code, wrinkles and gray hair 
were signs of weakness and inefficiency. 

The secretary was not at all the type of 
person Mary had expected to see. From the 
deep, commanding voice, Mary had imagined 
Miss Elizabeth Somer would be tall and perhaps 
a bit masculine in appearance, tailor made in 
attire. She proved to be small, with sharp, 
rather aristocratic features, thin lipped and 
haughty. She was dressed in mourning of 


66 Masquerading Mary 

the deepest dye, with a bonnet and long crepe 
veil thrown back from her face. Mary felt 
instinctively that her attitude towards her was 
unfriendly. 

The girlish voiced treasurer, Mrs. Johnston, 
was frankly an old lady with hair silvered and 
face pleasantly wrinkled. Her eyes were very 
blue and young. When Mary looked into them 
she felt she had received an embrace as much 
as though she had been taken into the lady’s 
arms and been softly and sweetly kissed. There 
had been a young teacher at boarding school 
who had smiled at her that way when she was 
brought before the faculty. That smile had 
always made life less complicated. She felt 
somehow that Mrs. Puss Johnston’s smile would 
help out now. 

“ This is her! ” announced Mrs. Flim. 

Mary bowed her head. If only she could 
hold in that laugh! 

“Your name?” The president’s voice was 
stern. She had not been allowed to have her 
way in regard to Mrs. Prince, but here was 
a young person whom she intended to control. 
When Mrs. Rogers was downed in one place 
she always rose up in another, stronger and 
more determined. She eyed the English girl 
critically. 


Masquerading Mary 67 

“ Her name is Miss Hill,” spoke up Mrs. 
Flim. “ Miss Hill meet Mrs. Rogers.” 

“ Let the young person speak for herself.” 

“How do you do, Mrs. Rogers? My name 
is Mary Hill.” 

“And your occupation?” 

“ I have no occupation at present, but am 
desirous of obtaining a place as governess.” 

“ Governess! ” 

“Yes, nursery governess! I mean I prefer 
teaching young children.” 

“Why did you come to Richmond?” 

“ But why not? Richmond is a charming 
city, so I am informed.” 

“ By whom? ” 

“ By everybody who speaks of it.” 

“Humph!’ It was an ejaculation in the 
nature of a snort. Mrs. Rogers was becoming 
irritated. The young English person was en¬ 
tirely too independent. It was a well-known 
fact that English servants were the most re¬ 
spectful and servile on earth, and this girl was 
actually standing up to her, Angelica Belle 
Rogers, as though she were her equal, or even 
superior. If a lady’s maid, she was certainly 
not a desirable one. She longed to put her in 
her place and inform her that the boarding 
home was not open to the servant class; but 


68 Masquerading Mary 

there was a certain easy dignity about the girl 
that cowed Mrs. Rogers, if such a word could 
be used in connection with that managing 
person. 

“ I still do not see why you should have 
come to Richmond. You have no friends here.” 
This was made as a statement and not an in¬ 
terrogation. 

“ Excuse me! I have some very good friends 
here. The oldest and best is Miss Effie Sharp 
Burton. We came down from New York on 
the same train.” The realization had come to 
Mary that she must bluff her way through this 
interview. At the mention of Miss Effie Sharp 
Burton there was a general movement on the 
part of the stout women on the board to pull 
down their stays and smooth their wrinkled 
fronts. It was as involuntary as is the tendency 
for the tongue to make a furtive sweep of the 
teeth when tooth paste is the subject of conver¬ 
sation. Mrs. Angelica Belle Rogers patted her 
well corsetted diaphragm as she emitted a self- 
satisfied “Ah!” 

“Do you know her well?” 

“ Well enough to call her Effie and have her 
call me Mary. She regretted exceedingly not 
taking me to the place where she lodges, but 
Miss May could not accomodate me.” 


69 


Masquerading Mary 

There was much whispered conversation 
among the board members concerning Miss 
Effie and the wide acquaintance she had made 
on her extensive travels. 

“ She’s the best there is in town,” panted a 
very stout person. “ I couldn’t get along with¬ 
out her. She persuaded me to try a front lace. 
It’s a great comfort since my arms seem to have 
got so short I can’t reach in the back to lace 
up. I thought at first — ” 

“An elastic brassiere takes care of some su¬ 
perfluous flesh I have under my scapulas. Miss 
Effie — ” 

“ I wouldn’t let anyone else fit me for any¬ 
thing in the world.” 

“Nor would I! These thin corset fitters 
have no sympathy or understanding in regard 
to fat women. Miss Effie knows how it is 
and she tries to make people comfortable, too. 
After having her fit me I always go away feel¬ 
ing kind of happy and — and — slender. I 
really believe a new corset does me more good 
than a course in psychology — and it lasts 
longer. One’s soul takes a slump in the course 
of time, no matter how convincing these psy¬ 
chology lecturers are. But a well-made, ex¬ 
pensive corset, recommended by Miss Effie, holds 
up a long time.” The speaker was a jolly 


70 Masquerading Mary 

woman whom the time honored phrase: “ fair, 
fat and forty ” fitted to a nicety. 

Miss Effie’s name had proven to be an open 
sesame to the hearts of the stout members of 
the board. Miss Elizabeth Somer, however, did 
not belong to that class, and even though she 
had, her spirit of opposition would have com¬ 
pelled her to disapprove of anyone well spoken 
of by the majority. She had been quite pre¬ 
pared to fight a battle with Angelica Belle, 
taking either side left vacant in regard to this 
English person, Mary Hill. Miss Somer was 
a gallant fighter and always gave the opponent 
the privilege of choosing his side first. All she 
asked was the other side. She always got it. 
If by any chance her opponent was won over 
to her way of thinking, she quickly changed 
that way of thinking and lo! was on the other 
side of the argument, fighting as furiously as 
before and giving no quarter. 

Miss Somer sniffed expectantly. She was 
ready for battle, but was in some doubt as to 
which was the other side. In fact, there did not 
seem to be anything to fight about. While she 
was turning the matter over in her mind, and 
before she had come to any conclusion, Mrs. 
Johnston made a motion to adjourn, first stat¬ 
ing that Miss Hill’s case was one for the com- 


71 


Masquerading Mary 

mittee on employment to take up. Mrs. Johns¬ 
ton being chairman of that committee, there was 
a general raising of eyebrows and a faint giggle 
from one member, who whispered to her 
neighbor: 

“ Put one over on Angelica B.” 

The women filed out, several of them stop¬ 
ping to speak kindly to Mary. Mrs. Rogers, 
however, stalked by, her well groomed head in 
the air. If the committee on employment would 
grapple with this matter unaided by their able 
president, let them do it. There was much other 
work for her to attend to in connection with the 
boarding home. She had every intention of 
making herself disagreeable on an inspection 
tour from kitchen to dormitories. And so she 
started on her triumphal progress, with poor 
Mrs. Flim following, her shoes and tight satin 
dress creaking apologetically and her smile pain¬ 
fully holding its own on her featureless face. 

Mary stood aside until the room was emptied 
of all except the gentle treasurer, who was 
evidently killing time by pretending to busy 
herself with the accounts. Her blue eyes had 
signalled an invitation to the girl to wait. As 
the last member of the board trailed out, she 
beckoned Mary to her side. 

“ You made a gallant stand, my dear. I 


72 Masquerading Mary 

could see it was hard on you. Miss Effie tele¬ 
phoned me early this morning about you.” 

“ Oh, then you knew — ” and here Mary 
hesitated. 

“ Yes, my dear, I knew that some problem 
had arisen in your life that made it advisable 
for you to leave England. I knew it was your 
own problem and that you should not be com¬ 
pelled to share it with ten other women.” 

“ But you knew that I was not telling the 
truth when I said Miss Burton was an old 
friend and that I had other friends in Rich¬ 
mond. Somehow it did not seem like lying 
at the time. Miss Effie is like an old friend, 
and when I looked at you and two other mem¬ 
bers of the board, I felt that I had friends 
here, too.” 

“ You have. I am your friend. That is the 
reason I cut poor Mrs. Rogers so short. I 
wanted to he the one to help you, if possible. 
Angelica Rogers is a good woman, hut she 
never has known the difference in people. Her 
way is the way to help some girls, but not 
you.” 

“ I inadvertently heard her agree to Mrs. 
Flim’s statement that I was a lady’s maid. I 
was in the reading room. Of course there is 
no digrace in being a lady’s maid, provided you 


73 


Masquerading Mary 

are a good one; but I am not one, perhaps be¬ 
cause I’d be such a bad one. I realized that 
Mrs. Rogers was speaking to me as though I 
were a servant. Perhaps that is why I — I 
teased her a bit.” 

“A little teasing doesn’t hurt her — poor 
Angelica! She takes herself so seriously; but 
then, reformers always do. They must, or the 
things they are interested in won’t come about.” 

“ Well, I am glad my being a lady’s maid 
didn’t come about. It is all I can do to dress 
my own hair,” and Mary laughed. 

At the sound of her lilting laugh, Mrs. Johns¬ 
ton looked at her keenly. She also noted the 
slip about dressing her own hair. “Umhum, 
accustomed to a maid! ” she said to herself. 
Aloud she said: 

“You are the culprit who laughed at the 
close of Mrs. Rogers’ prayer. I don’t blame 
you, my dear. I used to have the kind of 
laugh I couldn’t hold in, but I had to get 
over it. Sometimes it gets the better of me 
now, but not often. It really is just as amus¬ 
ing to laugh inside one. I want you to come 
to see me. I am going to see wha-t I can do 
in the way of a position as governess.” 

In the meantime Mrs. Rogers inspected with 
raised skirt and lorgnette, with poor Mrs. Flim 


74 Masquerading Mary 

sneezing and apologizing and painfully smiling 
her paid-for smile. 

“ The upper hall is too crowded, Mrs. Flim. 
Whose trunk is this? Too large entirely for 
a poor girl. A girl who owns a trunk like 
that has no business applying for a room at an 
institution like this,” asserted Mrs. Rogers. 
Mrs. Flim had a vague idea that the president 
expected the owner of the trunk to find sleep¬ 
ing quarters in the tray. 

“Yes ma’m!” she gasped. “It belongs to 
the new young lady, Miss Hill. To be sure it 
hasn’t her initials on the end, but I reckon she 
bought it second-hand. It’s a very fine trunk, 
I must say. But then, you see she is a for¬ 
eigner.” 


CHAPTER VII 


Miss Effie Sharp Burton was a quick worker, 
whether her job was the fitting of a corset or 
placing a young English person she had met on 
the train in a comfortable home as nursery gov¬ 
erness. On that morning she combined the jobs, 
fitting corsets steadily and never missing an 
opportunity to inform her customers of the 
wonderful chance someone was missing in not 
snapping up this paragon of efficiency and 
virtue who had but recently arrived in Rich¬ 
mond. 

“ And let me tell you, Mrs. Meade, I under¬ 
stand it is all the rage now to have an English 
governess for your children instead of French. 
Not that my dear friend can’t speak French 
too — speak it like a native. But everybody 
4mows that in this day and generation English 
h the thing. The Sulgrave Society is bringing 
'this about. I hear the English are having 
Americans to teach their kids, and we are re¬ 
ciprocating by having the English rub off some 
on ours.” Miss Burton was engaged in fitting 
75 


76 Masquerading Mary 

a long, pink brocade corset on a pretty young 
woman whose figure showed alarming signs of 
overweight. 

“Yes, dearie, now that is better. This will 
take care of those extra pounds you have taken 
on lately. And how is the boy? Of course 
you named him Henry Marshall Meade, Jr.” 

“ Henry Marshall Meade the Fourth,” cor¬ 
rected the young woman. 

“Well, if that don’t sound like royalty! Of 
course you have heard that Mrs. Taliaferro 
Bruce may get an English governess for her 
children. No, she did not tell me herself, but 
I was informed on pretty good authority. 
Seems she — ” 

“ But her children are tiny tots! ” 

“ Sure, but one can’t begin too young for 
English as she is spoke.” 

“ My sister-in-law, Peachy Meade, tells me 
the children in England have the most pic¬ 
turesque nurses. They dress in long blue capes 
with little tight bonnets and white lawn strings 
tied under their chins in big crisp bows. She 
was abroad for a year. I believe she went to 
some private theatricals once at a grand estate 
in the country, and the heroine in the play took 
the part of a nurse and Peachy said she looked 
too sweet for anything in the costume. She 


77 


Masquerading Mary 

was quite daffy about her. She was telling my 
husband and me about her only the other night. 
IVe forgotten her name, but she was a big bug 
over there, or kin to them, or something.” 

“ I reckon Miss Peachy met all kinds of fine 
folks over there; what with her beau being at¬ 
tached to the Court of Saint James. Now, 
dearie, see if you can sit down comfortable. I 
don’t want any one of my customers ever go¬ 
ing out of my fitting room saying they can’t 
sit down comfortable. Now this will take care 
of you nicely, Mrs. Meade, but please, please, 
unlace it every time before you take it off. 
Nothing ruins one like taking it off before you 
unlace it.” 

“ Oh, but it is such a nuisance and I’m too 
busy and in too big a hurry,” she objected. 

“ Well, I’m busy and I’m in a hurry too,” 
continued Miss Effie, “ but I’d no more take 
mine off without unlacing it than I’d try to get 
out of a Ford coupe without opening the door. 
Speaking of Fords, one time I was in one and 
had a grand smash up — rolled over an em¬ 
bankment into the creek. I was picked up for 
dead and hurried to a hospital. Just as they 
were getting my clothes off I kind of come to. 
Guess what I said first — showing what my rul¬ 
ing passion was? I said 4 Unlace ’em first’.” 


78 Masquerading Mary 

“ Did you really? ” asked Mrs. Meade, in¬ 
terested but not at all amused. “ And did 
they? ” 

“ Sure they did. And now shall I send them? 
Charged? I think I’ll telephone Mrs. Talia¬ 
ferro Bruce about my dear Miss Hill. She 
may not be exactly suited in governesses and 
she may even want two. Mrs. Bruce is so up 
and coming. I reckon she is the most fashion¬ 
able woman in Richmond.” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t do anything about it 
until I talk things over with my husband. I 
agree with you; one can’t begin too ypung. 
I’d like to have an English nursery governess 
for my son.” 

44 Sure, and many a woman in Richmond will 
envy the mother that gets Miss Hill. I am 
sorry for your sake that I have already spoken 
to at least a dozen of my customers about my 
little friend. They are all of them interested 
and I’ll wager she gets a good place before 
night. Of course Mrs. Taliaferro Bruce is 
such a good customer of mine; that’s the reason 
I thought of ’phoning her. She was just one 
of the many I had in mind. But since there is 
only one Miss Hill, only one family can have 
the benefit of her influence and culture. By 
the way, she will be here any moment. She is 


79 


Masquerading Mary 

to lunch with me. Would you like to see her? ” 

Mrs. Meade would. Before she left the fit¬ 
ting room Mary had arrived and was inquiring 
for her new old friend. Miss Effie actually ran 
to meet her and kissed her warmly, exclaiming 
delightedly over her coming in the nick of time. 

“ Miss Hill, meet Mrs. Meade,” she said by 
way of introduction. Miss Hill bowed shyly 
and Mrs. Meade was uncertain whether it was 
the proper thing to shake hands with a young 
person who, there was little doubt, was about to 
be employed in her household as a domestic. 
In fact, there was no doubt about it, for it was 
a well-known fact that when Mrs. Henry Mar¬ 
shall Meade III set her heart on something she 
always got it, although she usually went through 
the form of consulting Henry Marshall. Now 
she had set her heart on an English nursery 
governess for Henry Marshall Meade IV. She 
was determined Mrs. Taliaferro Bruce should 
not snap up this treasure, nor were any of her 
associates in the younger married set to be per¬ 
mitted to snap her up. She would settle the 
matter forthwith. 

“ Miss Hill, Miss Effie has been telling me 
about you. I am wondering if you might not 
come and — er — er — work for me. That is, 
be a kind of nursery governess for my son. 


80 Masquerading Mary 

Now don’t say no, because I have set my heart 
on it. It is so important for a child to have 
the proper English accent from the beginning. 
I am quite astonished when I see how many 
mothers are careless concerning their children’s 
English, actually encouraging them to speak 
like the Negroes. I am determined that Henry 
Marshall Meade the Fourth shall have every 
advantage that befits one of his blood. Of 
course I shall want references, Miss Hill. You 
must have lived with good people in England.” 

“ Oh yes, very good — at least very well 
thought of.” 

“How soon could you come to me?” 

“ To-morrow.” 

Arrangements were quickly made by the de¬ 
termined Mrs. Meade. She would send for the 
new governess at ten a. m., and she could im¬ 
mediately enter on her duties with Master 
Henry Marshall Meade IY. 

“ And Miss Hill — but perhaps I’d better 
call you Miss Mary now that you are to be 
with me — I am very particular in the matter 
of a uniform for my nursery governesses. Of 
course I shall insist upon the regulation Eng¬ 
lish one of long cape and tight bonnet. You 
know the kind I mean?” 

“Yes, I know. I — I have worn it before. 


81 


Masquerading Mary 

I have the very costume of which you speak.” 

“ Splendid!” and Mrs. Meade’s eyes glit¬ 
tered. 

That afternoon the news was broadcast among 
the younger married set that Mrs. Henry Mar¬ 
shall Meade, Virginia Wilson that was, had put 
one over on the crowd. The consensus of 
opinion was that there would be no living in 
the same town with her and that Henry Mar¬ 
shall was to be pitied. Henry Marshall IV 
also came in for his share of condolence. The 
poor lamb should have a nice colored mammy. 
Why not? Wasn’t a colored mammy good 
enough for the other Henry Marshalls, First, 
Second and Third? As for pure English — 
tommyrot! Virginia Wilson didn’t have an 
R in her alphabet and her favorite expression 
was: “Between you and I.” A mammy could 
teach a kid how to say Daddy and Mamma 
quite as properly as a stuck-up English maid. 
An English nurse’s uniform, too! Well, there 
had been some of them before now in Rich¬ 
mond. Virginia Wilson needn’t think she had 
originated a long blue cape and a close bonnet 
with white strings. Mrs. Felthaus had an Eng¬ 
lish nurse dressed that way until her children 
got big enough to wipe their own noses. And 
the Binghams still had one, but they lived at 


82 Masquerading Mary 

Westhampton and the nurse hardly ever came to 
town. It wasn’t exactly un-American to have 
a white nurse, but it was certainly un-American 
to have an English one; and it was against all 
the traditions of the South to have anyone in 
the nursery but a nice old black mammy. 

There were many surmises in regard to 
wages. Virginia Wilson was extravagant 
enough in some ways but she never paid high 
wages. That was one reason she changed maids 
so often. Anyone listening in on the tele¬ 
phones would hardly have believed it possible 
that the younger married set could be keeping 
the wires so hot discussing one of its most inti¬ 
mate friends. 

“ She doesn’t really change servants, servants 
change her,” said one. 

“ The only reason she keeps her butler is 
his people belonged to Henry Marshall’s people. 
Old Cy doesn’t know he’s free yet. Aunt 
Maria, the cook, is the same way. How do you 
suppose she will mix the races? My servants 
wouldn’t stand for a white girl.” 

“ Perhaps Virginia’s are used to it. You 
see, she has a white chauffeur. Of course he 
doesn’t eat in.” 

“ Such a nice bright boy is Mike. If it 
wasn’t for him I couldn’t stand driving around 


83 


Masquerading Mary 

with Virginia. He sees my jokes, which Vir¬ 
ginia never does. Sometimes he gets so red 
with suppressed laughter that his freckles dis¬ 
appear and his face looks pink. I wonder how 
much she pays Mike?” 

“ More than she would a colored one, I fancy 
— but then, you know Virginia. Maybe she 
doesn’t.” 

“ Perhaps this English nurse will demand 
much more than a mammy. I couldn’t afford 
her myself.” 

“ Neither could I, not that I would want 
her.” 

“ Oh, neither would I.” 

At both ends of the line hands were placed 
over the receivers to keep the exclamation from 
passing over the wire: 

“ Sour grapes! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


The friends of Mrs. Henry Marshall Meade 
might have spared themselves all the worry of 
conjecture concerning the wages to be paid the 
English nursery governess. They had quite as 
much information in regard to her remuneration 
of that young woman as Mrs. Meade had herself, 
or as had the new governess, for that matter. 
This point had not been touched upon by em¬ 
ployer or employee. The former had delib¬ 
erately avoided it, and the latter had not even 
thought of it. The important thing in Mary’s 
mind was to have an occupation, and she had 
gladly taken advantage of the offer made by 
Mrs. Meade that she should assume charge of 
her young hopeful. Even Miss Effie, whose eyes 
were ever open to the main chance for her friends 
as well as herself, while amused that the ques¬ 
tion of wage had not arisen, agreed with her 
new friend that the important thing was to 
get a job. 

“If you have a job, it’s mighty easy to get 
another. I got Mrs. Meade’s set going, and 
84 


85 


Masquerading Mary 

they’ll all be after you in no time. You’ll be 
in such demand in Richmond that if you’d been 
triplets you could get good homes for every 
one of you. Tell me, how did you get along 
at the boarding home?” 

And Mary told her, impersonating Mrs. Flim 
and Mrs. Angelica Belle Rogers with powers 
of mimicry that delighted Miss Effie. 

“ Why, you are as good as a show. I should 
think you’d go on the stage instead of wasting 
your time trying to teach babies to speak Eng¬ 
lish. Have you ever thought of going on the 
stage? ” 

“ Not seriously, but I love theatricals. Per¬ 
haps if I hadn’t been so fond of acting — but 
never mind!” and the girl caught her breath. 

“Umhum!” thought Miss Effie, “that’s the 
trouble, is it? Got into some mess over private 
theatricals. I wonder what it was.” She then 
took herself to task for even daring to surmise 
about her friend’s affairs. “ She’ll tell me when 
she gets good and ready,” concluded Miss Effie. 

Mary, in a measure, regretted leaving the 
boarding home. There was something friendly 
about the place. It had proven to be a haven 
of refuge for her on arriving in Richmond. She 
could never forget its hospitality any more than 
she could Miss Effie’s kindly help on the train. 


86 Masquerading Mary 

She wanted to see more of Maggie Cross and 
the clever big mouthed girl who had sat next to 
her at breakfast. She had a feeling that she 
would have enjoyed making Tillie and Gertie 
like her, which she was sure she could do. Then, 
too, she was interested in the angel faced girl 
with the golden red hair, who was evidently the 
person who kept Mrs. Rogers informed of what 
the inmates of the boarding home said about 
her. She regretted not making the acquaint¬ 
ance of Mrs. Prince, regretted not seeing more 
of Mrs. Flim’s paid-for smile. She even felt 
sorry that she would be absent the next time 
sausage and buckwheat cakes morning dawned. 
She would rather like being turned loose in the 
reading room to sort and straighten the books. 
There she might again forget herself and dream 
her way back to the book room she remembered 
in England — with the trim garden and her 
Golden Knight hastening down the walk, has¬ 
tening in search of her. 

At ten sharp there was a brisk ringing of 
the door bell of the boarding home and it was 
announced that Mrs. Meade’s chauffeur had 
come for Miss Hill. Mike was a pleasant look¬ 
ing, up-standing lad whose kindly blue eyes 
made the new nursery governess feel that she^ 
had one more friend in The United States of 


87 


Masquerading Mary 

America. He looked at the girl curiously but 
respectfully. 

“ Are you the lady who is to nurse the 
little b’y?” 

“ I am the one who is to teach him,” smiled 
Mary. 

“Well! Well! And Mrs. Meade says I 
am to fetch your things along.” 

“ Here is my small luggage,” indicating the 
several pieces ranged in the hall, brought down 
by the obliging butler who was still in a broad 
grin over the generous, unexpected and unusual 
tip given him by the English girl. “ I have 
a large box — er, trunk that you could not 
carry.” 

“ Then I’ll phone for a baggage man. I 
hope for your sake it is not very large, miss, 
because you’ll have to sleep in it if it is. The 
missis has been busy all morning bossing the 
job of turning a bit of a store room into a 
bedroom for ye that’s full of her own trunks. 
She’s already performed a miracle with a cot 
and a dresser — but there, I mustn’t be after 
discouraging ye.” 

“ Oh, but my box is very large — huge in 
fact. It’s a pity it isn’t larger if I am to 
sleep in it,” and Mary laughed her lilting laugh, 
laughed her way right into Mike’s heart. 


88 Masquerading Mary 

“ I guess I can shift the things some and make 
room for your things,’ he said, “ but I’ll thank 
ye not to mention the fact to Mrs. Meade. You 
see, miss, I hired to her husband for a chauffeur, 
and if I let down the bars in one place she’ll 
have me doing the washing and ironing and 
making up beds before I can stop her. The 
missis is a great one for enlarging your sphere,” 
and Mike’s eyes twinkled as he helped his 
charge into the handsome closed car and care¬ 
fully placed her many pieces of baggage in 
beside her. 

Under the chauffeur’s sure guidance the great 
car glided rapidly and smoothly northward. 
After several blocks they turned westward. 

“ This is Franklin Street,” volunteered Mike. 
“ It’s where Richmond folks used to want to 
go after they died if they weren’t living here 
already. There’s the Woman’s Club. I can’t 
tell you much about that, never having been 
closer than parking space. Business is taking 
this part of town and people are moving off 
and leaving their homes to boarders. But some 
of the best ones are still hanging on. A block 
north, up that way, a lady lives in a house whose 
yard takes up more than half a square, right 
in the business section, and she says she’s going 
to stay there as long as she lives and when she 


89 


Masquerading Mary 

dies she’s going to be cremated and keep her 
ashes there. You see the city authorities 
wouldn’t allow her to be buried there, but ashes 
are strictly sanitary.” 

Mary laughed delightedly and peered curi¬ 
ously up the street, spying in the distance a 
substantial red brick mansion surrounded by an 
ivy-grown w T all. 

“ They tell me the novelist, Miss Mary Johns¬ 
ton, used to live in this row and wrote some of 
her big books here. Later she moved to the 
mountains. Down yonder, a block south, Miss 
Ellen Glasgow lives. I reckon you know about 
those ladies.” 

“ Indeed I do.” 

“ Plenty of rich folks live along here, some 
alive and some dead. There’s the Second Baptist 
church. Don’t ask me where the first one is, 
because I don’t know. One time a stranger 
asked what the altitude of Richmond was and 
he was told: c Mostly Baptist.’ There’s the 
Jefferson Hotel. Swell place they say, but I 
reckon the likes of us wouldn’t get much show 
there.” 

The girl gasped as though a pail of cold 
water had been thrown in her face. It was all 
very well for Mrs. Meade’s chauffeur to point 
out places of interest on Richmond’s thorough- 


90 Masquerading Mary 

fares, making amusing comments as he did so, 
but to have him class her with himself with 
his “ likes of us ” — well, this was somewhat 
disconcerting. What would a certain disagree¬ 
able old woman in England say to it? The 
thought of the old woman made Mary smile and 
then laugh. She took herself to task sharply. 
She must remember that the old life was over 
with and the new life begun. She was a nurs¬ 
ery governess on her way to her first situation. 
Whether she could hold it or not remained to 
be seen. Mike had intended no insult. Per¬ 
haps he even meant to compliment her. At 
any rate, he was a kindly, pleasant young man, 
whose intention evidently was to please and 
befriend her. The Irish in him appealed to the 
Irish in her. She laughed again and asked him 
if he had always lived in Richmond or how did 
he know so much about it. 

“ No, miss, I have been here only three years, 
but I worked on a sight-seeing bus-line for a 
while and I had to get up a line of talk for 
tourists. I’ve been after getting it off on ye.” 

“ Then please tell me everything.” 

“ This is the Commonwealth Club. They do 
say it pretty near went out of business when 
prohibition hit the country, but I fancy they 
must be making a profit off tea drinking, be- 


91 


Masquerading Mary 

cause they built an addition and they hit it up 
pretty lively. Now this is Monroe Park. A 
great place for nurses and babies. I guess you 
and the young’un will spend lots of time down 
here. It’s a pretty spot in spring.” 

Monroe Park is a pretty spot at any time, 
and on that frosty February morning it seemed 
very beautiful to the girl who had been too 
“long in city pent.” The fountain was frozen 
in great white stalactite-like masses which glis¬ 
tened and sparkled in the sun. The Sacred 
Heart Cathedral formed a background of soft, 
blue grey. A few negro nurses were seated 
on the benches, shapeless masses from the many 
layers of clothing in which they were swathed 
to keep out the cold, while some of their charges 
lay snugly sleeping in baby carriages and 
others ran around the park shouting and play¬ 
ing, their spirits high from the frost in the air. 
Their bright sweaters made pleasant bits of 
color in the general somberness of the scene. 

“ Now, miss, here is where Franklin Street 
jazzes up a bit and turns itself into Monument 
Avenue. That statue there is of General Stuart. 
They say he was a grand soldier, but I must 
say his monument looks to me kind o’ like an 
iron paper weight. Now the next one is 
General Robert E. Lee.” 


92 Masquerading Mary 

“How beautiful it is!” exclaimed the girl. 
She gazed at it with shining eyes, turning and 
looking at it from the rear window of the car 
until the outlines were lost in the frosty haze. 
The peace, dignity and poise of the equestrian 
statue of the great man entered her soul. She 
decided she had another friend in Richmond 
and wished she had known about him when she 
appeared before the Board, feeling sure Gen¬ 
eral Lee’s name would have had great weight 
with Mrs. Rogers. 

“ Here we are, Miss! ” 

The car drew up in front of a handsome 
house, very like all the other houses in that 
it had three stories, was built of brick trimmed 
with granite, had a broad pleasant looking front 
porch with white painted pillars and a small 
terraced grass plot. 

“Yes, here we are — but before I turn you 
loose, miss, please don’t take it hard if I tell 
you to keep a sharp eye on the mistress. Make 
her settle in the beginning what you are to do, 
and stick to it. Mrs. Meade’s all right, but as 
I told you she is great on widening the spheres 
of those that work for her. Those are her very 
words, ones she got off on me when she wanted 
me to run the electric washer every Monday 
morning and the vacuum cleaner in between 


93 


Masquerading Mary 

times. That was when her nurse was leaving. 
I knew mighty well if I got to widening my 
sphere too much I’d be like the song says: 

“ 4 I’m the bo’s’n tight and the midshipmite 
And the crew of the captain’s brig.’ 

Now you are hired to nurse — ” 

“No, teach!” 

“ Well, teach, if that suits you any better, 
but whatever it is, don’t be letting the mistress 
widen your sphere.” 

Mary laughed delightedly. Somehow she 
didn’t feel at all downhearted. Life was cer¬ 
tainly very amusing, a greater adventure even 
than death. She wished now that she had 
thought to ask the chauffeur to tell her of her 
charge. She knew nothing except that it was 
a boy, named for his father, grandfather and 
great grandfather. She liked boys — always 
had. She wondered how old the little fellow 
was. Mrs. Meade had been very noncommital 
on the subject in the few moments she had 
given to engaging the new nursery governess. 
She had asked for a reference but had been 
given none. Mary patted her pocket to be 
sure the precious document was safe. 

The door was opened by a preposterous look- 


94 Masquerading Mary 

ing housemaid, much out of keeping with the 
elegance and rich furnishings of the house. 
Some attempt had evidently been made to tone 
down this colored Blanche into the semblance of 
a house servant, but it would have taken more 
than black dress, snowy apron and cap to ac¬ 
complish the desired effect. The cap was on 
crooked, and all around it bristled stiff pigtails 
wrapped with strings. The apron, a small 
ruffled affair, was spotlessly clean, and well it 
might be, since it had been carefully turned 
around to the back where it protected that 
portion that doesn’t usually get soiled in ordi¬ 
nary housework. The girl had a good-natured 
grin on her flat brown face and Mary decided 
quickly: “ Another friend.” 


CHAPTER IX 


“ Miss ’Ginia air a gittin’ her haid washed 
an’ she say fer me ter show you up ter yo’ 
so-called room an’ git you kinder settled like 
befo you begins nussin’. Humph! You sho 
is got plenty er berlises,” declared Blanche as 
Mike returned to the car for the hat box. 
“ Some likes ter carry they belongings ’roun’ 
in berlises but I’s alius been a great han’ fer 
a trunk. Trunks ain’t so handy fer liftin’ an’ 
gittin’ away quick an’ easy, but fer all that I 
likes a place whar I kin put ev’thing, waises, 
skirts an’ all, an’ lock ’em up.” 

“ I, too, but my trunk will «ome later. The 
chauffeur has telephoned about it.” 

“ Gawd! Whar you reckon you gonter put 
it?” 

The room destined for the new governess 
was a veritable “ third floor back ” which Mrs. 
Meade had been using as a trunk room. Al¬ 
though the place had been cleared out some¬ 
what to make room for its intended occupant, 
three or four trunks and a cedar packing chest 
95 


96 Masquerading Mary- 

had been left in the room. The furnishings 
were very meager, a sharp contrast to the lavish 
display of old mahogany and oriental rugs Mary 
had glimpsed in passing up the two flights of 
stairs. However, the room was warm and clean, 
still smelling of the scrubbing of the morning, 
and the one window facing the south insured 
plenty of sunshine. Mike deposited the suit 
case, hat box and traveling case on the cedar 
chest, then turned and pointed scornfully at 
the row of trunks. 

“ What’d I tell ye? No room for anything 
else. I’ll pile ’em up now while I’m here. Or, 
better still, I’ll haul them up to the attic.” 

“ I low you’d better not pile ’em up,” pro¬ 
tested Blanche, “ ’cause Miss ’Ginia air all 
time wantin’ ter git in ’em. But I reckon she 
wouldn’t mind their bein’ in the attic. She 
wanted Uncle Cy ter fotch ’em up thar this 
mornin’ but he done cotched a stitch in his side 
an’ wa’ kinder ’posed ter lif’n up weights. 
Miss ’Ginia lowed as how she dassent arsk you, 
Mr. Mike, cause you were kinder proudified 
since Marse Henry done cided ter buy that big 
Abe Lincoln car. She says the folks what own 
jitney cars gits lots mo’ out’n they shovers than 
the ones what owns big ones. Anyhow she 
thought the trunks wouldn’t be in the white 


97 


Masquerading Mary 

nuss’s way ’cause she could kinder make out 
ter sit on ’em.” 

“ Widening their sphere, too,” Mary sug¬ 
gested. 

“Well, I’m not too proud to carry these 
trunks up in the attic for ye,” Mike said, “ or 
do anything else for that matter; but it’s not 
as a chauffeur I’m after doing it.” 

Mary had a tip ready for the obliging Mike, 
but something in his kindly Irish eyes told her 
tipping would be out of taste. Again she took 
herself to task. In these United States were 
not Mike and she in the same walk of life? 
Why should she tip Mike any more than he 
should tip her? However, there was nothing 
in the eyes of Blanche that made tipping seem 
out of taste. On the contrary, Blanche gave 
her to understand that she was responsible for 
the smell of soap and water that still lingered 
around the tiny room, also that if she had had 
her way there would “ a been a curting at the 
winder an’ a piece er cyarpet on the flo’, as 
they wasn’t nothin’ what homelified a room lak 
curtings an’ cyarpets.” 

Mary tendered a quarter, and while Blanche 
did not refuse it, neither did she take it, but an¬ 
nounced in the tone of one bargaining: 

“ Cose I’s bleeged fer the money, but I’d 


98 Masquerading Mary 

ruther ter have one er yo’ ol’ waises if you air 
got one ter spare. I gits a quarter an’ it jes’ 
melts away. But whin I gits a wais I air got 
something to show an’ wear.” 

Mary promised to see when her trunk ar¬ 
rived if she could find something Blanche would 
like. 

“ I’d ruther any day ter have a wais or skirt 
or something white folks done been a wearin’ 
than anything new. It looks lak white folks 
kinder put a spell on clothes an’ they gits a 
set to ’em that stays. I sho do lak yo’ hat. 
How much did you pay fer it? ” 

“ I don’t remember,’ laughed Mary, “ but 
it really isn’t very smart.” 

“ Lawd love us, lady, I never said there was 
any sense in yo’ hat. I jes’ said I thought it 
wa’ pretty. I never yet heard tell of a smart 
hat. If there is sech a thing as that I’d sho 
love to have one, ’cause I mought git some sense 
in my haid from wearin’ it. I’d certainly 
’stonish Uncle Cy an’ Aunt Maria if I got some 
sense. Uncle Cy don’t think I got a bit but 
he don’t say so ’cause he ain’t no blood kin 
ter me. But Aunt Maria is my own wedded 
Aunt on my paw’s side, an’ she don’t make no 
mind ter tell me ’bout a hunderd times a day 
that I’se a plum id jit.” 


Masquerading Mary 99 

“That isn’t very kind of her,” suggested 
Mary. 

“ She ain’t meanin’ kindness ner unkindness. 
She’s jes’ statin’ the fac\ Folks is been 
tellin’ me all my life that I ain’t smart, but I 
thinks sometimes they is mo’ or less foolish they- 
selbes ter be a tellin’ me something I already 
knows. If they’d try ter learn me, ’stid er 
tellin’ me I don’t know nothin’, I’d git along 
better. I knows enough not ter tech what don’t 
b’long ter me, an’ I knows enough not ter lie 
useless like.” 

“ That is being very wise, Blanche. Per¬ 
haps it is wiser never to lie at all. What do 
you think?” 

“I don’t think—I knows . Now if I hadn’t 
kinder lied to the shover ’bout what Miss ’Ginia 
said about she dassen’t ask him ter carry them 
trunks up in the attic, he wouldn’t a teched ’em. 
I knowed well enough she wanted ’em up 
there. It wa’n’t a black out’n out lie an’ it 
wa’n’t out’n out truth.” 

“We might call it diplomacy,” suggested 
Mary. “But where is my charge? I mean 
the little boy I am to teach.” 

“ Bless you, he’s sleep. But tell me, lady, 
what’s yo’ name? Miss ’Ginia done call you 
Goobernuss but that ain’t no name. Down 


100 Masquerading Marjr 

where I come from we calls peanuts goobers, 
but there aint no folks named that.” 

“ My name is Mary Hill.” 

“ Then us all’ll call you Miss Mary. Miss 
Mary, Miss ’Ginia say when you res’ yo’ hat 
she’ll be pleased ter see you in her boodah.” 

“ But who is Miss ’Ginia? ” 

Blanche laughed loud and long, showing 
every white tooth in her big mouth. “ Lawsa- 
mussy on us! Done come ter nuss fer folks an’ 
don’t know they name. Miss ’Ginia is the 
missus. She’s Marse Henry Marshall’s wedded 
wife.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Meade! I am stupid Blanche. 
I thought perhaps she was the housekeeper.” 

“ No’m, she ain’t much of a one. To tell 
you the truth, Miss Mary, Uncle Cy am the 
housekeeper in this place. He phomes fer 
’visions an’ then he goes in an’ tells Miss 
’Ginia we is outer butter an’ sugar an’ how 
’bout roas’ lamb an’ limon pie fer dinner. Some¬ 
times he gits a early start an’ takes a market 
baskit an’ goes down ter the ol’ markit, that’s 
way down town, an’ he brings it back cram 
full er eats. Yessum, Uncle Cy does the 
orderin’ an’ Aunt Maria does the cookin’ an’ 
Miss ’Ginia sots back an’ gits the credit whilst 
Marse Hinery does the payin’. Miss ’Ginia 


101 


Masquerading Mary 

jes’ ev’y now’n then puts in her lip ter show 
’em who is boss, but she mos’ times gibs ’em 
what she calls cyarteblosh. I reckon that means 
ter go way an’ let her sleep. You see, Uncle 
Cy an’ Aunt Maria been all time buttlin’ an’ 
cookin’ fer the Meadses—that is Marse Hinery’s 
maw an’ paw — an’ when Miss ’Ginia married 
young Marse Hinery she jes’ kinder married 
the help along with him. She don’t never have 
no trouble keepin’ them ’cause they kinder be¬ 
longs ter Marse Hinery. The onlies’ trouble 
Miss ’Ginia ever has is with house maids an’ 
nusses. You see, Aunt Maria is proudified an’ 
rombossy, an’ she treats the others so hotty that 
they are all time up an’ leavin. That’s the rea¬ 
son Mis ’Ginia puts up with me, cause you see 
I’m something fer Aunt Maria ter pick on an’ 
she lets the nuss alone an’ takes it out on me.” 

“ That’s hard on you I should think,” sug¬ 
gested Mary, who felt that Blanche would give 
her a line on her employer’s household that 
might help her to keep her head in what she 
fancied was going to prove a difficult situation. 

“ Lawd love you, Miss Mary, I don’t mind 
Aunt Maria any mo’n I would a bumpin’ bug 
a buzzin’. ’Mandy uster be kinder uppity some¬ 
times when Aunt Maria would git on the ram¬ 
page, but ’Mandy wa’ yaller skinned, an’ yaller 


102 Masquerading Mary 

gals won’t take much off’n dark complected 
folks. Who’s ’Mandy? Why she wa’ the 
nuss what Miss ’Ginia sent off las’ night. I 
felt kinder sorry fer ’Mandy ’cause she had 
done obligated herself ter pay fer a rabbit skin 
coat, an’ losin’ her job this week kinder cuts 
in on her style. But she’s a likely gal an’ I 
reckon she’ll git another soon. Co’se Miss ’Ginia 
talked it out with Aunt Maria an’ Uncle Cy ter 
see if they’d put up with a white lady a goober- 
nussin’, an’ they lowed there wa’nt nothin’ like 
tryin’ a thing oncet. Of course we alls is kinder 
uster white help, what with Mr. Mike a shov- 
erin’. But he don’t eat with us alls. An’ now 
I reckon’ we’d bes’ be showin’ ourselves ter Miss 
’Ginia.” 


CHAPTER X 


The morning had been a strenuous one for 
Mrs. Meade. In the first place, she had neg¬ 
lected the evening before to inform her lord 
and master that she had put one over on her 
friends by snapping up the young English 
woman to look after the manners and speech 
of the heir apparent; also that she had seen fit 
to dismiss the likely yellow girl who had been 
serving as nurse to Master Meade. Mrs. Meade 
had a habit of “neglecting to inform her hus¬ 
band of anything — of which he was sure to 
disapprove — until it was too late for him to 
interfere. Her favorite time for approaching 
him was in the morning, while he was in the 
throes of dressing; the crucial moment of the 
fitting of collar button in button hole being the 
preferred one. No doubt that moment was 
chosen because of the fact that although Henry 
Marshall Meade was one of the ablest business 
men in Richmond, with many irons in the com¬ 
mercial fire and with a remarkable power of 
grasping the details of his several ventures and 
103 


104 Masquerading Mary- 

holding them separate and distinct in his well- 
ordered mind, he was, nevertheless, unable to 
button his collar with divided attention. On 
that morning he had an unusually difficult time, 
having recently arrived at the stage where a 
quarter of a size increase in shirt bands and col¬ 
lars had become urgent without his realizing it. 

“Damn it all! My collars have shrunk up,” 
he exclaimed. “ Oh, excuse me, Virginia. I 
reckon I’ll have to give up my favorite expres¬ 
sion when the kid begins to take notice.” 

“ Oh, don’t mind me, Henry. Of course it 
isn’t the collar; it’s your neck that’s the matter. 
You are getting so terribly fat. I really think 
you must either diet or take Turkish baths. I 
am going to do both. All of my set are going 
in for Turkish baths. As for your swearing 
before our son, I hope you will try to stop. 
I dont believe you realize how important it is 
that Henry Marshall Meade the Fourth should 
start right in the matter of — er — er — accent 
and all.” 

“Yes I do, and I can assure you my accent, 
when it comes to a plain unvarnished c damn,’ 
is as pure as the snow on the roof of a convent,” 
and Henry struggled violently to make ends 
meet. 

“ Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that — I mean 


105 


Masquerading Mary 

of the way little Henry says damn, which I 
hope he won’t do at all — and as for snow on 
a convent roof, I am sure what snow lands 
and sticks on the Cathedral roof gets just as 
black and dirty as it does on the buildings 
around. Of course a convent is where nuns 
stay and there are only priests at the Cathedral, 
but I do not believe that makes any difference 
in the snow.” 

Mr. Meade paused in his struggles and looked 
at his wife quizzically, his face and neck redden¬ 
ing with suppressed laughter. 

“Why, Henry! You look as though you 
might have apoplexy any moment. Maisie 
Brown was telling me only yesterday that the 
doctor had told her husband he simply must 
reduce. He had the most convincing statistics 
showing how many fat corpses there were. 
But we were speaking of the importance of 
our son’s education.” 

“ Oh, were we? ” 

“ I think we cannot begin too soon to give 
him the very best. I can’t bear to have him 
grow up speaking like a darkey. It will shame 
him so when he goes to a northern university.” 

“ Which he will not do,” firmly. “ The Uni¬ 
versity of Virginia is where my son is going. 
I don’t know where yours is going.” 


106 Masquerading Mary 

“Why, Henry! You sound as though we 
had twins or a divorce or something. But never 
mind that. I am interested in the education 
of Henry Marshall Meade the Fourth, if you 
are not. What is the good of an education 
if you say 4 flo 5 and 4 do 5 as some of the chil¬ 
dren do in Virginia, and so I have taken the 
bull by the horns and dismissed Amanda.” 

“Was that necessary?” 

“ Why, certainly, I had to dismiss her be¬ 
fore — ” 

“But I mean taking the bull by the horns. 
That seems so cruel, my dear — kind of like 
a Wild West melodrama,” and with a mighty 
tug Mr. Meade buttoned his collar, and rapidly 
tying his cravat, turned a beaming face on his 
wife and, to her surprise and discomfiture, 
kissed her pretty face. 

44 Now, my dear Virginia, tell us what it is 
all about. You have dismissed Amanda so that 
our son may go to a northern university. But 
tell me, pray, what is to be done with him for 
the next nineteen years or so.” 

44 1 was coming to that. I have engaged an 
English girl as nursery governess. She will be 
here to-day.” 

44 The devil you have and she will! And 
what on earth is a nursery governess to teach 


107 


Masquerading Mary 

a kid who has not yet acquired backbone enough 
to sit up in his buggy? Of course I know I 
am only a poor worm of a man, but please tell 
me why have you decided on this course.” 

“ Well, the chance was too good to miss. If 
I had waited, some of the others would have had 
this new girl. In fact, Mrs. Taliaferro Bruce 
was dying for her and I got her from right 
under her nose. The ones in our set are simply 
wild with envy about it. And you know, Henry, 
our son must lead instead of following. His 
ancestors have led and I am sure you are better 
than any of the business men in Richmond in 
your line.” 

“ And what do you know about this English 
woman ? ” 

“ She has excellent recommendations.” 

“ From whom?” 

“ From — from — her former employers in 
England, of course. She is very pretty, too, 
and not a woman at all. She is to wear the 
uniform worn by English nurses. You remem¬ 
ber your sister told us about how picturesque 
they were — a long cape and tight little bonnet.” 

“Ah, I see. The boy must have a pic¬ 
turesque setting. For my part, I think a nice 
old mammy in a head kerchief is more pictur¬ 
esque than any red faced English nurse maid. 


108 Masquerading Mary 

I bet she has a Cockney accent and neglected 
teeth. I wish you would get a mammy, Vir¬ 
ginia. They are so faithful and safe.” 

“ Now, Henry, how many times must I 
tell you that Aunt Maria and a mammy nurse 
can’t get along? It is all I can do to keep the 
peace between Aunt Maria and Uncle Cy. 
The only thing to do is have the other servants 
so young that the old ones can pick on them 
safely. Of course you realize how important 
Aunt Maria and Uncle Cy are to our menage.” 

“ I give in. But how about their standing 
for this new white girl? ” 

“ I’ve fixed that. You see, she is not a 
servant exactly and they are to call her Miss 
Mary and she is to have her meals in the pantry. 
She is to have entire charge of the boy and 
sleep in the trunk room. That will make it 
easy for us to go out at night whenever we 
choose, as the girl knows nobody in Richmond 
and will have no where to spend her evenings.” 

“ Might a mere man ask how much you 
will have to pay for this paragon of a milk¬ 
maid?” 

“ Why, yes, you can ask all you’ve a mind, 
but to tell the truth, Henry, I did not come to 
terms with Miss Mary.” 

“ Didn’t she ask? She must be a fool.” 


109 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Oh, no, not at all. She just trusted me to 
do the right thing. I thought I should consult 
you before I made an agreement with her.” 

“Thanks awfully! And now what do you 
want me to say? ” 

“Say how much you think I should give her.” 

“ I should think she would come for nothing 
since she has no other place to spend her time. 
In fact, we might get some rent from her for 
the trunk room. Rents are very high in Rich¬ 
mond and trunk rooms are in great demand.” 

“ Oh, Henry, you must be joking.” 

“ Never more serious in my life. The bar¬ 
maid is without doubt a moron and will be a 
great care to us. She should have to pay for 
shifting the responsibility to perfect strangers. 
Surely you will not entrust our young hopeful 
to her. I don’t think it is safe.” 

“ Oh, Henry, now I know you are joking. 
I can’t see that you are in the least funny. 
You and your sister are both very provoking, 
always pretending to be in earnest. Nobody 
likes a good joke better than I do, but I must 
say I want to know it is a joke before I laugh. 
Another thing; this young girl is neither a 
milkmaid nor a barmaid, but a perfectly respec¬ 
table nursery governess who is a lady in spite 
of the fact that she is to eat in the pantry.” 


110 Masquerading Mary 

“ Why not? Wasn’t the queen in the kitchen 
eating bread and honey? If a queen can eat 
in the kitchen, surely a plain, if perfect, lady 
can eat in the pantry. But tell me something 
more about this imbecile. How old is she? ” 

“ I did not ask. She is young, though, and 
very respectful and is accustomed to wearing 
a uniform. Miss Effie Sharp Burton — you 
know the nice woman I have fit my corsets — is 
a great friend of hers and you know Miss Effie 
is very respectable, even if her hair is varie¬ 
gated.” 

Having calmed her husband into the sem¬ 
blance of acquiesenee, the next thing on Mrs. 
Meade’s programme was the cleaning and clear¬ 
ing out of the trunk room. At the same time 
Henry Marshall Meade IV must be attended 
to. Aunt Maria must leave her kitchen and 
take the place of the dismissed Amanda, while 
Uncle Cy did Aunt Maria’s work and Blanche 
scrubbed the trunk room. At ten sharp Win¬ 
nie was to arrive. Winnie w T as a mulatto 
woman who constituted a kind of visiting beauty 
parlor in that she shampooed and curled hair, 
manicured nails, massaged faces and necks, and 
even went farther if paid extra. She had 
a weekly engagement with every member of 
“the set.” While she worked she made her- 


Ill 


Masquerading Mary 

self extremely agreeable, retailing any news she 
might have gathered on her rounds. She had 
a rare character for a person bearing the repu¬ 
tation of a news-monger, and that was that 
she was perfectly truthful. She always re¬ 
peated what she had actually heard, no more 
and no less. Her interpretation was usually a 
kindly one and her customers felt safe in her 
hands. They told her what they wanted re¬ 
peated and they were sure it would be broad¬ 
cast verbatim . No matter how full Mrs. 
Meade’s morning, nothing could persuade her 
to break an engagement with Winnie, certainly 
not on this morning when the new governess 
was arriving. She was determined that Winnie 
should see her find, and she knew that the joy¬ 
ful news would go forth that Henry Marshall 
Meade IY would lead as had his ancestors — 
that is, the ones on his father’s side. She wished 
the new governess might make her appearance 
in bonnet and cape, but of course that was too 
much to hope for. 

Winnie had done Mrs. Meade to a turn; 
having, as it were, gone the whole hog in the 
way of shampooing, manicuring and massaging. 
When the new governess entered, an electric fan 
was rapidly drying the recently washed hair, 
which shone with an added lustre because of a 


112 Masquerading Mary 

few drops of “ something ” Winnie had put in 
the final rinsing water. After the drying came 
the curling, and Winnie was busily preparing 
the electric irons for the topping off process. 

The interview was soon over. Winnie was 
sufficiently impressed by the lovely English girl 
to put her whole heart in informing her clientele 
of Mrs. Meade’s good management in having 
procured such a treasure. That was the real 
object in having Mary report while Winnie 
was there. Nothing was said of what the duties 
were to be and the matter of compensation was 
not touched upon. 

“ And my pupil?” asked the girl. 

“ He is still asleep. I’ll call you when he 
wakes up. Yes, he sleeps a great deal. I 
have always had him next to me. Mr. Meade 
would not hear of the nursery being on the 
third floor, where I had planned to have it. I 
hope you will be comfortable and that you 
found your room all right.” 

“ Very nice, thank you.” 

While Mrs. Meade was pleased with her 
new governess, she felt in her heart that she 
was a little too assured in her manner, had too 
much poise. And then there was a sparkle in 
her eye that came and went, and in some uneasy 
way reminded the lady of a similar look in the 


113 


Masquerading Mary 

eyes of her husband and sister-in-law. It was 
always there when they were joking and pre¬ 
tended not to be. Of course this English per¬ 
son could not be joking. What was there to 
joke about? 


CHAPTER XI 


The new governess went back to her trunk 
room, shut the door, sat down on the cedar 
chest and laughed and laughed, and then had 
all she could do to keep from weeping. Again 
she took herself to task: 

“ Now don’t behave like the heroine in an 
early Victorian novel and ‘ fly to the east room 
and weep bitterly.’ In the first place, this is 
not an east room. It faces the south and has 
a cheerful outlook on the garages and small 
gardens of the elite of Richmond. Brace up, 
alias Mary Hill, and be glad you have such a 
nice rain proof roof over your head and a pleas¬ 
ant, scrubbed room with a southern exposure. 
Perhaps some day you may have a ‘ curting ’ at 
the window and a ‘ piece of cyarpet ’ on the 
floor.” 

Her trunk had come while she was having 
the interview with the mistress. Mike had seen 
to it that it was placed in a convenient spot 
and that it was unstrapped. The girl busied 
herself unpacking a few necessary articles of 

114 


115 


Masquerading Mary 

clothing, among other things a long blue cloth 
cape and small blue bonnet with white lawn 
strings. Her expression as she placed the bon¬ 
net on the foot of the bed was for a moment 
both sad and hitter. She held the cape up in 
front of her and gave it a vicious little shake. 

“ I’m glad I brought you, anyhow. I’ll call 
you my mantle of aliases and I’ll wager you will 
cover more than a mantle of charity. You, 
little bonnet, may be a fool’s cap, but you fit me 
for the time being at least. Oh, Mary, Mary, 
quite contrary!” 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound 
of lusty yells coming from the second floor, and 
soon a breathless Blanche broke into her room. 

“The baby done woke up!” 

“What baby is it?” 

“ Yo’ baby fer sho! Leastways the baby 
what you is gonter nuss. Miss ’Ginia says fer 
you ter step down stairs.” 

“But, Blanche — tell me, please — how old 
is this baby? ” 

“ He ain’t no age, Miss Mary. He ain’t much 
mo’n bawn. Leastways this time las’ year he 
wa’n’t bawn. I come ter town ter git kinder 
house broke, seein’ as how I been mos’ly 
workin’ in the fields in ’backer patches an’ sich. 
Leastways it wa’ some time whilst it wa’ yit 


116 Masquerading Mary 

warm weather, maybe a little after big meetin’ 
time in ’Melia County, an’ the baby wa’n’t bawn 
then but he ’rived not long after I did. We 
was mos’ twinses in ’rivin’.” 

Mary gasped and then laughed. 

“All right Blanche, I’ll come down imme¬ 
diately.” 

“ Befo’ you goes, Miss Mary, is you foun’ me 
ary wais’ in yo’ trunk? ” 

“ Not yet, Blanche, but no doubt I have a 
blouse you can wear.” 

“ I ain’t ’ticular ’bout its blousin’, jes’ so 
it’s a wais’.” 

Winnie had departed, leaving Mrs. Meade in 
a pleasant frame of mind, curled and flattered. 
She felt assured that those in Richmond who 
really mattered would soon know of her having 
acquired the extra distinction of a nursery gov¬ 
erness who would teach her offspring the purest 
English. The crying of the baby recalled to 
her mind that she had not divulged to the new 
governess that her charge had not yet cut his 
teeth. This had been as deliberate on her part 
as neglecting to inform her husband of the dis¬ 
missal of the likely yellow girl and the employ¬ 
ment of Miss Mary Hill. She knew that the 
English girl would be astonished at the extreme 


117 


Masquerading Mary 

youthfulness of her charge, but she was de¬ 
termined to brazen it through. She had ac¬ 
quired something that, according to Miss Effie 
Sharp Burton, was in great demand; and having 
acquired it she was going to make the best of 
it. Of course Miss Mary must be the nurse, 
as Aunt Maria and Uncle Cy could not have 
nursing added to their other duties and Blanche 
was not to be trusted. Miss Mary would nurse 
the baby but would be spoken of as an English 
nursery governess. Once the baby began to 
talk he would astonish all Richmond by his pure 
English accent. Whether it turned out well or 
not, at least she would have the satisfaction of 
having snapped up something that was wanted 
by others, especially by Mrs. Taliaferro Bruce. 
Now for breaking to Miss Mary what her real 
duties for the time being would be! 

“ Ah, come in, Miss Mary — your little pupil 
is awake. He never cries except when he first 
awakens. That is good for him, so the doctor 
tells me — expands his chest and clears out his 
lungs. I know you will love him. He is a 
splendid boy, and so good and so healthy. 
Really not a bit of trouble,” and so the mother 
rattled on while the baby in the next room lustily 
bellowed. “ I think he has expanded his chest 
enough now so we can go in and take him up.” 


118 Masquerading Mary 

The nursery was a down-to-date one with 
every known appliance for raising babies by 
hand — kitchenette, private bath, refrigerator, 
kiddy koop, patent adjustable crib, etc. In this 
crib lay a real love of a baby. Mary’s heart 
went out to him as he raised his dimpled arms 
to her. The moment his eyes rested on her he 
stopped crying and began to crow. 

“Look! Look! He likes me!” she cried, and 
with a skill acquired she knew not how, she 
lifted the child from his cradle and hugged him 
to her. She did not remember ever before hav¬ 
ing had a baby in her arms. Yes, she had smiled 
at babies in the London parks as they lay in 
their perambulators, but English nurses are 
strict with passers-by. Never would she have 
been allowed to touch one, even had she felt 
the urge. But this baby, this little American 
boy, was to be hers to care for and he had put 
out his sturdy little arms to her, although his 
mother had been standing by. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Meade, can you trust him to me? 
I’ll try so hard to care for him and no harm 
shall come to him through my neglect. Just 
tell me what I am to do and I shall try to 
do it.” 

Mrs. Meade beamed. Everything was work¬ 
ing out exactly as she had planned. She had 


119 


Masquerading Mary 

not dared hope that no explanations would be 
necessary concerning the extreme youthfulness 
of Henry Marshall Meade IV. 

“ I am sure you will do quite nicely,” she 
said, trying not to sound too elated. “ As for 
what you are to do, of course you will have 
entire charge of the baby. He has an abun¬ 
dance of clothes and he must be kept spotlessly 
clean. I do not ask you to do any laundry 
work and you need not economize in baby clothes 
but use all that is necessary. This is the kitchen¬ 
ette and this is the refrigerator where his milk 
is kept. Here are printed instructions as to 
how his food is prepared, also minute details as 
to feeding and sleeping. I have a baby spe¬ 
cialist who has worked out this schedule for 
my son. He must sleep just so long and eat 
just so much. You can read for yourself what 
he says. Here also are books on the care and 
feeding of babies. I think this is the best one 
of all, and my doctor likes what it says about 
babies very much, although as a rule he does not 
think much of baby books. I will leave you 
now. You will follow instructions about taking 
baby out for the afternoon — in uniform of 
course.” 

“ Of course — and in a pram? ” 

“ Pram? Oh yes, you mean buggy. Cer- 


120 Masquerading Mary 

tainly in a pram. By the way, I furnish 
aprons.” 

“ Aprons? ” 

“Yes, aprons — for you to nurse in.” Mrs. 
Meade began to think her new nursery gover¬ 
ness was almost stupid. “ Anything you don’t 
understand about just ask Aunt Maria, the 
cook. She knows all about what is required for 
babies and I am sure will help you all she can 
at first until you get used to the place. Now it 
is time to feed him. His bottles are all done 
for the day. That is one thing I have found it 
necessary to attend to myself, but now you are 
here I can let you do it. I couldn’t exactly 
trust the darkeys who have nursed him up to 
this time. They are careless. You, I am sure, 
are different.” 

“ Certainly I shall not be careless, but I am 
inexperienced. I have never taken care of — of 
— so small a child before.” 

“ Oh well, children are children, and I have 
always heard a child of five months is far easier 
to take care of than an older one. I must not 
forget the references you said you could fur¬ 
nish. Mr. Meade was most particular in wish¬ 
ing to see them. I will hold baby while you go 
get them.” 

Again the nursery governess flew to the 


121 


Masquerading Mary 

trunk room, holding her hand over her mouth 
as she ran up the steps. She got in and shut 
the door before the laugh rippled out. The 
thought of the disagreeable old woman in Eng¬ 
land and what she would think of aprons being 
furnished, and the great concession granted by 
the mistress in not requiring her to do the 
laundry, had got the better of her risibles. 

“ Oh, Mary, Mary, keep your head! ” 

As soon as she could compose her features she 
hurried back to the nursery, holding the required 
references in her hand. Mrs. Meade examined 
the envelope with much satisfaction. It was of 
heavy vellum, with an insignia on the flap that 
looked as though it might be a coat of arms. 
The same delightful imprint was at the top of 

the note paper and under it a monogram- 

M. D. The reference was short and to the 
point. 

To whom it may concern: 

Mary Hill has lived with me for 
many years and I can recommend her 
as honest, intelligent and of a cheerful 
disposition. She is remarkably healthy, 
never , to my knowledgehaving been ill 
but once in her life. 

Lady Mary Dale. 



122 Masquerading Mary 

“ Lady Mary Dale! Oh, then you must have 
lived with the nobility. How interesting!” 

“ Not very. In fact, not so interesting as 
other persons. I hope you find my references 
satisfactory, Mrs. Meade.” 

“Perfectly so! And now I must run. I 
have a million things to do in the shops and 
then luncheon at the Country Club. Keep baby 
out a long time, but be sure and feed him ac¬ 
cording to directions.” 

And Mrs. Henry Marshall Meade was gone 
and our English Mary was left alone with a 
five months old baby to feed and keep spot¬ 
lessly clean and put to sleep according to sched¬ 
ule. She had never before held a little baby 
in her arms. She held him off from her and 
laughed. The baby liked the music of it and 
laughed back. 

“ Well, well, my American sweetheart, I am 
honest, intelligent and healthy, as is written by 
a member of the nobility, so surely I can take 
care of a wee man like you, especially with the 
doctor book and Aunt Maria to show me. So 
here goes! ” 


CHAPTER XII 


Aunt Maria was cross, so cross that Uncle 
Cy and Blanche gave her a wide berth. 

“ Sis Maria ain’t ter say los’ her temper, 
hut she’s sho’ mislaid it,” Cy advised Blanche, 
“ an it is bes’ fer me’n you not ter git in her 
way, ’cause we might ter say step in between 
her an’ her temper at the very moment when 
she might be gittin’ ready ter pick it up. I 
ain’t blamin’ her much, ’cause this thing of 
servin’ extry meals am a nuisance. Miss ’Ginia 
done come along so sof’ like a tellin’ us of 
the new nuss that me’n Sis Maria couldn’t say 
a word. We alls ain’t held much to ’Mandy, 
’though she wa’ right likely lookin’. She wa’ 
a little too free niggerish fer Sis Maria an’ 
me, but that ain’t a sayin’ we wanted Miss 
’Ginia ter be a hirin’ a white nuss what had 
ter eat in the butler’s pantry.” 

“ But, Uncle Cy, you ain’t seed her yet. She 
ain’t gonter be no trouble an’ if she is I’m here 
ter take it,” said Blanche. “ She got ways like 
a angel an’ a laugh like a mocking bird settin’ 
123 


124 Masquerading Mary 

on a swingin’ lim’. I can’t see what she’s a 
doin’, goin’ out ter service with them hands er 
hern as white as weddin’ cake icin’ an’ her 
finger nails all pink an’ pretty like Miss ’Ginia’s 
after Miss Winnie gits through with her.” 

“You mean, Blanche, that this new nuss am 
folks? ” 

“Folks? I should say she is — an’ folksy 
folks at that.” 

“ Well, wherefo’ did Miss ’Ginia say she wa’ 
quite a lady if she air sho nuf folks? Every¬ 
body knows that quite a lady means she ain’t 
quite a lady. Fact is, child, that when Miss 
’Ginia gits a goin’ she gits a goin’, an’ Shockoe 
Creek would have ter rise mighty high ter stop 
her. She got hell-bent on havin’ this so-called 
lady a nussin’, an’ have her she would. I 
heard her a phonin’ all yesterday evenin’. One 
time I thought she mus’ be gettin’ ready ter 
have a tea party or something, but Lawd love 
you, she wa’ jes’ infawmin’ her friends of what 
a treasure she had picked up an’ how Mrs. 
Taliaferro Bruce was after her. I’m a wonderin’ 
what Marse Henry thinks about it all.” 

“ I reckon he thinks what young niggers 
thinks — that buckeyes is biscuit. Sometimes 
I thinks Miss ’Ginia got that whiteman 
fooled — ” 


125 


Masquerading Mary 

“Watch out, gal! Watch out! Don’t you 
be a callin’ Marse Henry no whiteman. Least- 
ways not runnin’ it all together thataway. I 
knows he’s a man, an’ I knows he’s white, but 
I ain’t a gonter set still an’ have no nigger 
wench a callin’ him ‘ whiteman.’ I been be¬ 
longin’ ter the Marshall Meades all my life 
an’ my pappy an’ grandpappy befo’ me an’ 
theirs befo’ them — ” 

“ Bless Bob, Uncle Cy, I ain’t meanin’ ter 
be callin’ Mr. Meade out’n his name. You 
mus’ ’scuse me. I done called Miss ’Ginia 
whiteooman ter you this mornin’ an’ you ain’t 
said peep turkey ’bout it, an’ how was I ter 
know I couldn’t call him whiteman? ” 

“ If you don’t know the diffunce ’tween the 
Marshall Meades an’ the Wilsons, ’tain’t fer 
me ter try ter bring you through. On the 
other hand, if you don’t know that diffunce 
you needn’t be a makin’ out ter tell me the 
new nuss air a lady bawn, ’cause I tell you 
right here you ain’t no jedge. Now I ain’t a 
puttin’ down Miss ’Ginia as not mighty fine an’ 
up an’ cornin’ — but what I’m a doin’ is placin’ 
my white folks whar they b’longs, an’ that is 
on the topmost branch of the fambly tree. The 
Wilson’s fambly tree by the side of ourn, ain’t 
mo’n a field pine by the side of a fust growth 


126 Masquerading Mary- 

oak. I ain’t a sayin’ they ain’t good folks enough 
in their way, an’ I reckon they’ve laid up some 
money an’ owned they home since befo’ the war, 
but that ain’t nothin’ ter my folks. Th’ain’t 
hardly a monumint in Richmond that ain’t got 
some er us’s blood in their veins.” 

During this conversation Uncle Cy and 
Blanche were in the butler’s pantry rubbing 
silver. Aunt Maria was in the kitchen furiously 
rattling her pots and pans and in a rumbling 
bass she was singing a hymn, the refrain of 
which was: 

“ No hiding place down here.” 

“ If you don’t believe me,” continued Uncle 
Cy — 

“But I do!” admitted Blanche. 

Uncle Cy had no idea of giving up his argu¬ 
ment because of having convinced the repentant 
Blanche, and so he continued: 

“ If you don’t believe me, jes’ look at this 
here silver. Every bit of it Henry or Marshall 
or Meade silver! The onlies’ way you kin make 
a W fer Wilson out er any of these markings 
is ter turn the M’s upsidedown. An’ I tells 
you the M’s wa’ sho turned upsidedown when 
Marse Henry married into the W’s. It looked 
like some of the fambly des’ couldn’t git over 
it. Miss Lizzie Somer was the worstest, but 


127 


Masquerading Mary 

she an’ Miss ’Ginia air a git tin’ ’long right 
peaceable here lately.” 

“ I think Miss ’Ginia air mighty prutty. 
Uncle Cy.” 

“ She air that, pow’ful prutty.” 

“ She sho is,” continued Blanche. “ She air 
prutty jes’ like a cow — an’ there ain’t nothin’ 
prettier than a nice clean cow ter my way er 
thinkin’. Cows is got prutty eyes, an’ lashes 
so long you could plat ’em. So’s Miss ’Ginia. 
An’ a cow’s breath smells better’n anything 
an’ — ” but whether Blanche in her enthusiasm 
intended to intimate that Mrs. Meade shared 
the last attribute in common with the cow re¬ 
mains to be divulged, for at that moment the 
new governess appeared in the door with young 
Master Henry Marshall Meade IV crowing in 
her arms. 

In the kitchen Aunt Maria still rattled the 
pots and pans irritably, and rumbled forth her 
reiteration of: 

“ No hidin’ place down here.” 

Mary paused, holding the baby close in her 
arms. A pretty picture she made. Uncle Cy 
agreed with Blanche that she looked like an 
angel, or maybe the picture of a lady that hung 
in the drawing room — the one with a light 
shining behind her head and a baby in her arms. 


128 


Masquerading Mary 

He stopped his vigorous rubbing of the silver 
and gazed at her with the expression in his 
kind eyes of an old house dog who had decided 
to admit a newcomer into the family circle. 
If he had possessed a caudle appendage he 
would have wagged it. As it was, he could 
only bow his grizzled, woolly head and spread 
out his arms as he stepped back with a gesture 
of fealty. His “Mistis! Mistis!” meant that 
he was Mary’s to command. 

Aunt Maria’s song boomed forth. In it she 
had declared in stanza after stanza that there 
was no hiding place anywhere, naming every 
object in her vocabulary where one might pos¬ 
sibly hope to find a hiding place. Trees, rivers, 
mountains, caves, houses, churches, lodges, 
bushes, etc. She had arrived at the rock as 
Mary stood in the door between the dining room 
and butler’s pantry. 

“I went to the rock to hide my face — 
The rock cried out: ‘No hidin’ place, 

No hidin’ place down here!’” 

“ She’s pretty nigh done now, Miss Mary,” 
Blanche whispered. “ When she gits to the 
rock she most times gives out ’les she’s extra 
aggrafied.” 


Masquerading Mary 129 

In spite of the racket Aunt Maria was mak¬ 
ing in the kitchen she seemed to divine that 
the interloper was approaching. From the stove 
by which she was standing she could see old 
Cy backing off with arms outspread. She was 
conscious that Blanche was speaking in a con¬ 
ciliatory tone, the one she used in addressing 
white folks. 

“ Humph!” said Aunt Maria, slamming 
down a frying pan so that the stew pans and 
kettles shook with fright, “Humph!” and then 
she took up her refrain where she had left off 
and with a new meaning in her voice shouted 
forth: 

“ I went to the kitchen to hide my face — 
The kitchen cried out: 6 No hidin’ place, 
No hidin’ place down here! ’ ” 

Mary laughed. The clear note soared above 
the rattle of pan and pot and dominated Aunt 
Maria’s “ No hidin’ place,” which she was re¬ 
peating with meaning emphasis. Mary laughed 
and laughed again. The baby jumped and 
gurgled with delight and crowed aloud. There 
was sudden quiet in the kitchen. The cooking 
utensils no longer trembled. The hymn was 
finished. Aunt Maria softly padded to the door 


/ 


130 Masquerading Mary 

between the kitchen and butler’s pantry, where 
she stood looking at the offensive white help who 
had come to interrupt the peace of below stairs. 
That laugh! The lilt of it, the fun of it, the 
sadness of it, had searched out the old woman’s 
soul. She wanted to hear it again. It was as 
she had heard Blanche telling Uncle Cy — like 
a mocking bird sitting on a swinging limb. 
She looked long and hard at the young girl — 
noted her waving black hair and the blue, blue 
eyes under sweetly arched brows, and caught in 
them a wistful gleam which explained the note 
of ineffable sadness that had crept into the 
laughter. 

The sullen humor lifted from her soul, the 
humor that had held her in its grasp ever since 
Mrs. Meade had told her that the new nurse 
was not a real nurse at all but a governess who 
was to be called Miss Mary and was to have 
her meals separate from both white and colored 
servants. She had pictured quite a differ¬ 
ent person. This sweet young thing, whose 
slim figure was bending under the weight of 
the plump baby, was one to be cherished and 
protected and, above all, to be fed. There was 
something about her that reminded the old 
woman of a little girl she had nursed in days 
gone by, a frail child who had died before she 


131 


Masquerading Mary 

reached her teens. She had loved her more than 
she had ever loved any human creature, even 
more than her own children. To be sure, that 
child had golden hair and brown eyes, but the 
soul that looked from those brown eyes was 
akin to the one that shone from the blue ones 
before her. Aunt Maria did not know the 
word “ gallant/’ but that would have expressed 
what she had in her mind. Mary’s was a gallant 
soul. The old woman bobbed an obeisance. 

“ Glad ter meet you, Miss Mary. Us alls 
air a gonter do all we kin ter make things easy 
fer you. I reckon you air kinder peckish by 
this time an’ I kin knock up a tasty lunch fer 
you in no time. You, Blanche, git a move on 
you an’ set a place fer Miss Mary in the dining 
room. This here butler’s pantry ain’t no place 
fer a lady ter eat in, what with sinks an’ sich. 
Now stir yo’ stumps, gal.” 

Blanche grinned delightedly. Uncle Cy 
nodded his head in approval of Sis Maria’s 
change of heart. Again Aunt Maria rattled 
pots and pans, but this time there was a cheer¬ 
ful and harmonious clink to them as she knocked 
up the tasty luncheon. 

“ Another friend,” thought Mary, and some¬ 
how she felt very sure of Aunt Maria. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Mary was astonished to find how easy it was 
to care for a healthy young child with regular 
habits. Regularity, as far as other people were 
concerned, was one of the things Mrs. Henry 
Marshall Meade III insisted upon, and regular 
the baby was from the moment it came into the 
world. Even before it arrived it might have 
been said to be regular, for the expectant 
mother had put herself in the hands of spe¬ 
cialists whose creed — regularity — was a relig¬ 
ion. Henry IV slept a prescribed number of 
hours, awakened for nourishment, crowed a 
little, gurgled a little, smiled happily and sleep¬ 
ily and was off again to Shut Eye Town. Un¬ 
der Aunt Maria’s tuition Mary soon learned the 
mysteries of the wardrobe and mastered the 
intricacies of tape and pin. The baby’s bath 
in the morning was a frolic for all concerned. 
After several demonstrations by Aunt Maria, 
the new nurse knew as well as the teacher how 
to hold the squirming, kicking, crowing 
youngster. 


132 


133 


Masquerading Mary 

“ I’ll give it to you, Miss Mary, you is some 
baby han’ler. I’ve seen mothers of leben an’ 
mo’ that couldn’t handle a baby the way you 
idn. Of co’se the true tes’ is puttin’ on a 
belly ban’, but new time folks don’t use no belly 
ban’s on babies. I ’member the fust babies I 
ever nussed we uster sew the belly ban’ on em. 
In those days there wa’nt no little saftest pins, 
an’ puttin’ on a belly ban’ wa’ a ticklish busi¬ 
ness.” 

“ Why did the poor kiddies have to wear 
them?” asked Mary, who liked nothing better 
than listening to the talk of her colored friends. 

“ To keep they insides inside. Babies mus’ 
be made diffunt these days. In ol’ times if 
babies didn’t wear belly ban’s they wa’ liable 
ter bus’ open. This here baby ain’t never had 
on one ter my certain knowledge, an’ strange 
ter say he ain’t bus’ed open yet. It mus’ be 
the babies air made diffunt. I know his paw 
would a split open if he hadn’t er been band¬ 
aged up. I ’member how Mammy Loo, who 
was ol’ Missy’s reg’lar lyin’ in nuss, uster put 
it on as tight as a puddin’ bag full er puddin’ 
an’ then she tol’ his maw that if the baby hol¬ 
lered too much he wa’ liable ter bus’ wide open. 
Ol’ Miss wa’ scairt ter death ter let him holler, 
an’ if he so much as chirped she’d make us all 


134 Masquerading Mary 

pick him up out er his crib. He got so spiled 
he wouldn’t sleep less somebody helt him. I 
’member one time I wa’ kinder lookin’ after him 
whilst Mammy Loo went to meetin’ an’ ev’y 
time I put him down he waked up an’ hollered. 
So I helt him an’ helt him, til by’nby I got so 
sleepy I drapped off an’ when I come to I wa’ 
lyin’ on the flo’ with the baby on top er me. 
Both of us done slep’ through the night lyin’ on 
the flo’. I come to the inclusion then an’ thar 
that I wa’nt gonter be no reg’lar baby nuss. 
I kep’ a thinkin’ how it would a been if I’d 
been on top er the baby stid er the baby on top 
er me. I likes babies an’ I ain’t mindin’ keepin’ 
keer er them off’n on, but not reg’lar. I ain’t 
had no heart ter nuss anyhow sinct my little 
lamb died. That’s the little gal chil’ I tol’ you 
about.” 

“ Yes, I remember,” said Mary. 

“ I says gimme cookin’ with no stint in ’gre- 
dients, that is fer reg’lar. When you cooks you 
plans an’ fixes an’ when you are through you 
are through, but nusses air a nussin’ from day 
ter night an’ from night back ter day. If the 
chilluns don’t love the mammy nuss the mothers 
are s’picious, an’ if they do love ’em too hard 
the mothers are jealous. I ’member ’bout my 
lamb. One time a gemman what wa’ callin’ 


135 


Masquerading Mary 

asked her who she loved bes’ in the world an’ 
she up an’ said ‘Aunt Maria an’ God 5 an’ do 
you know her maw got ter cryin’ ’cause she wa’ 
so jealous er me, not ter mention our Maker. 
I tell you now, Miss Mary, Miss Ferginia ain’t 
diffunt from the res’. She’s glad enough ter 
git shet er the trouble of the baby but she’s 
gonter git peeved if he turns out a lovin’ you 
an’ God beter’n he does her.” 

Mary had been with the Henry Marshall 
Meades long enough to feel quite at home. She 
possessed that rare power of adapting herself to 
her surroundings; acquired, no doubt, from hav¬ 
ing been forced to spend much of her girlhood 
in the houses of other people. Always on the 
branch, never in a nest of her own. Her posi¬ 
tion in the household was a peculiar one. The 
colored servants respected and loved her. Mike, 
the Irish chauffeur, was her slave from the very 
first. The baby held out his arms to her when¬ 
ever he was awake. Mr. Meade w^as evidently 
puzzled by the new governess — puzzled and 
attracted. Having a preconceived notion that 
she was a milkmaid type, he had found some 
difficulty in adjusting his mind to this charming, 
slim girl whose poise and manner evinced good 
breeding. He, too, was impressed by a certain 
gallant bearing always present, whether she was 


136 Masquerading Mary 

wheeling the baby down Monument Avenue or 
receiving orders from the mistress concerning 
her charge. Her head was always up and shoul¬ 
ders squared — and then her laugh! He found 
himself listening for that laugh. Sometimes in 
the early morning he heard it in the nursery. 
He would pause in the business of adjusting 
collars and stand quite still until his wife would 
chide him with: “ Henry, do hurry! Aunt 

Maria hates to wait on you for breakfast. I 
know very well what you are thinking about — 
percent or interest or discounts or something. I 
can catch the gleam in your eye. I must say 
you might forget business once in a while for 
baby and me.” 

And he would quickly button his collar, 
though he could not help wondering what the 
governess was laughing about and wishing Vir¬ 
ginia would keep still and let him hear the 
music. 

The Meades had been married six years, but 
Richmond, when there was nothing else to dis¬ 
cuss, still wondered why Henry had done it. 
Sometimes Henry wondered a little himself, not 
that he did not love the pretty woman quite as 
much as he had the pretty girl, but there were 
moments when he faced the truth that the mother 
of his somewhat belated baby had not developed 


137 


Masquerading Mary 

as, in his early infatuation, he had hoped she 
would. However, he had made his marriage 
bed and faithfully lay on it. One thing: Vir¬ 
ginia was as pretty as ever, and she graced his 
house and automobiles and spent his money quite 
as intelligently as could have a wittier person. 
As for character, his wife was all character; if 
planning her life and putting those plans into 
execution with an expedition and efficiency that 
Herbert Hoover himself might emulate, meant 
character. She made up her mind what she 
wanted and then acquired it. She always did 
what she wanted to do and never did what she 
did not want to do. She had an almost devilish 
ingenuity in accomplishing this in such a man¬ 
ner that any blame that might ensue could not 
fall on her. For instance, she had determined 
before she married Henry that his sister Peachey 
Meade was not to live with them. By clever 
manipulation and juggling of facts, she had 
made it seem that Peachey herself had come to 
the conclusion that she did not want to make 
her home with her brother and his wife. 

Peachey, who was only eighteen at the time, 
had no other thought than to continue to live 
with her brother — who was much older than she 
and had in a measure taken the place of mother 
and father to his beloved little sister. However, 


138 Masquerading Mary 

when she realized how the new sister-in-law felt 
about it, she quite readily fell into the trap and 
was quick to be the first to demand emancipation 
and independence for herself. 

College was the first step toward this free¬ 
dom. Holidays were spent in visits to the many 
relations, with a bare two weeks in her brother’s 
home, although a room in the third story was 
kept in readiness for her, and this always was 
spoken of by her sister-in-law as “ Peachey’s 
room.” Indeed, that lady took great credit to 
herself for this charmingly dainty apartment, 
with its pretty hangings matching the wall 
paper, its graceful ivory tinted furniture and 
luxurious tiled bath. Mrs. Meade ignored the 
fact that Peachey never occupied this room more 
than two weeks a year, and fooled herself into 
believing that it was her sister-in-law’s fault that 
she did not spend her entire time with the 
brother who quite frankly adored her. Tran¬ 
sient guests, who Mrs. Meade feared might be¬ 
come too permanent, such as country cousins and 
the like, were put in this room. She had a set 
phrase which she always used in this connection. 

“ I am putting you in Peachey’s room. She 
is not with us at present but we are rather ex¬ 
pecting her any day. Oh, yes, she knows her 
room is ready for her at all times. Of course 


139 


Masquerading Mary 

sometimes it is inconvenient to keep this apart¬ 
ment set aside for her, as our house is not really 
so very large; but then, she is Henry’s only 
sister and I feel enough cannot be done for the 
dear girl. If we had a cottage of only three 
rooms I should feel that one of those rooms 
must be Peachey’s room.” 

Naturally, the country cousin, or whoever was 
occupying the room, would feel that too long a 
stay was hardly desirable in that Peachey might 
pounce upon the household at any moment and 
her room must be ready. In fooling herself 
concerning her sister-in-law, Mrs. Meade also 
succeeded in fooling many other persons. Those 
who did not know the girl felt she must be 
rather queer, at least peculiar, and perhaps a 
bit stuck up and difficult to handle. 

It was rather disquieting that now, after four 
years at college and two years abroad, the little 
sister-in-law had come back to Richmond with 
the avowed intention of setting up bachelor maid 
quarters for the next year or more. Rumor was 
that she was engaged to Price Winston, a clever 
attache of the American Embassy at the Court 
of St. James. But she had not confided in her 
brother’s wife. Whether she had confided in 
Henry it was impossible to divine. When 
approached in the matter he had only grunted 


140 Masquerading Mary 

out a “Well, well! Is that so?” and had thus 
dismissed it. 

Of course Henry was all for having his sis¬ 
ter come and occupy the room that had been 
for six years held sacred to her. It was all very 
well to go to college and travel abroad and visit 
around among the relations, but when she was 
in Richmond her place should be in her brother’s 
home. He loved her and missed her and wanted 
her. She was his own little sister, and until 
she married she ought to live with him. Beside 
all this, she had an understanding heart and a 
sense of humor. It was sometimes a bit tire¬ 
some to be always laughing at his wife and 
never with her. He hoped, almost prayed, that 
Henry IV would know a joke when he saw it. 
He wondered if Miss Mary could instill some 
humor into her charge along with the boasted 
pure English. The baby kicked and crowed 
and giggled already, as though he distinguished 
between jest and earnest, but in a baby that 
might mean nothing more than a good digestion. 
At any rate, until the boy grew enough to share 
his father’s jokes, he devoutly wished to have 
his sister make part of his household. 

Whenever he mentioned the subject to his 
wife she would agree with him that Peachey 
should come. 


141 


Masquerading Mary 

“ I am sure, Henry, that I have done all I 
can to make your sister feel at home in your 
house. Don’t I keep a room ready for her year 
in and year out? I even call it Peachey’s room 
and have the servants understand it is her room. 
Only last week I had to tell Cousin Lulie Mel¬ 
ton that while she was welcome to the room for 
a day or so that Peachey might be back in Rich¬ 
mond any moment and I felt her room must 
be ready and waiting for her. Cousin Lulie 
had come all the way from Bedford to consult 
a specialist about her eyes, ears, nose and throat, 
and I know she felt kind of disappointed not 
to make her headquarters here at our house while 
she took treatment. But I felt it was my duty 
to be quite frank with her about Peachey’s room. 
Naturally your own sister must be considered 
before my mother’s first cousin, once removed.” 

“ Once removed is good,” grinned Henry. 
“ But I can’t see why you didn’t put your poor 
Cousin Lulie in the other guest room. Where is 
she? Let me send for her. I wouldn’t have 
one of your kin not be welcome in our house for 
anything.” 

“Now, Henry, what foolishness! Cousin 
Lulie is well able to board at the Jefferson 
while she is under the doctor’s care. Besides, 
she is an awful old bore, with all of her ailments. 


142 Masquerading Mary 

I really was afraid Henry Marshall might catch 
something in his ears, eyes, nose or throat while 
she was here, not that I believe there is a thing 
the matter with her, really — nothing but selfish 
imagination. Thank goodness, however, our boy 
is not a contagious baby.” 

“ Nevertheless, I should dislike very much for 
him to be exposed to selfish imagination,” Henry 
solemnly declared. “He might catch it, and 
without doubt it is the most deadly of all mal¬ 
adies. Speaking of imagination — is Miss Mary 
getting any results with the kid in the way of 
English ‘ as she is spoke? ’ ” 

Mrs. Meade looked at her husband coldly. 
She wished he wouldn’t be so foolish. If she 
ever married again she was determined to pick 
her husband carefully and be sure he was not 
a person who tried to be funny. Above all, she 
would not accept Number Two if he had a sister 
who laughed at his silly sallies. If Peachey 
Meade had been without the boasted family 
sense of humor, she might have been welcome 
to the pretty ivory tinted furniture, chintz 
hangings and luxurious tiled bath. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Peachey Meade was back in Richmond after 
a prolonged stay in Florida. She had arrived 
only the night before. Instead of coming to 
her brother’s house, she had gone to a select 
boarding house where her cousin, Miss Elizabeth 
Somer, had made her home for twenty years 
or more. Her excuse was that she had many 
times promised Cousin Lizzie to visit her and 
this seemed a good opportunity. She did not 
say, in making the excuse, that she was not 
really visiting Cousin Lizzie any more than 
Cousin Lizzie was visiting Mrs. Leander Peake, 
wdio kept the fashionable and select boarding 
house. It pleased Cousin Lizzie to speak of 
Peachey as her guest, just as it pleased Mrs. 
Leander Peake to speak of her boarders as 
guests, and to forget, as far as possible, that 
the matter of remuneration was of the greatest 
importance. 

Peachey Meade was blessed with a comfort¬ 
able income of her own; comfortable in that it 
allowed her to live as she chose. She chose to 
143 


144 Masquerading Mary 

live simply, traveling when the spirit moved 
her and stopping when the spirit ceased to move. 
She had had two years of journeying at home 
and abroad and now she had determined to stop 
in Richmond for an indefinite period. Rumor 
was right. Peachey Meade was engaged to 
Price Winston and that was the reason she had 
come back to Richmond and also the reason 
that her stay in her beloved home town was in¬ 
definite. She wdshed to be married in old St. 
Paul’s, with her friends around her and with 
her brother to give her away. The date for 
her wedding had not been settled upon. In¬ 
deed, the engagement had not yet been an¬ 
nounced to anyone but the beloved brother. 
Price Winston was even then in Washington 
and expected in Richmond at any hour. 

Breakfast was over at Mrs. Leander Peake’s, 
and breakfast at Mrs. Peake’s was a real meal. 
Neither that lady nor her paying guests had 
any use for what they considered the new-fan¬ 
gled idea of a light matutinal repast. Of course 
there must be batter-bread and turnovers and 
cakes or waffles. There was the inevitable salt 
roe-herring that the inhabitants of certain of 
the south-eastern states feel must start the day. 
Then liver and bacon or kidney stew, fried 
apples, fried potatoes and eggs to order. 


145 


Masquerading Mary 

Peachey, accustomed to the Continental break¬ 
fast of coffee and rolls, must be forcibly fed 
by the determined Miss Somer, who brooked 
no disobedience from the young. Now that the 
ordeal was over, Peachey declared she felt like 
a Straasburg goose. 

“ You would have felt more like a goose if 
you had not eaten your breakfast. What is the 
use in paying Mrs. Leander Peake the enor¬ 
mous board we do pay her unless we eat her 
food? I have no patience with waste. It is the 
one tradition left us here in Virginia, this good, 
hot, satisfying breakfast, and it is the duty of 
all of us of gentle blood to hold to that tradition. 
This foolish traveling abroad is what has spoiled 
you. Virginia is good enough for Virginians 
and it is the duty of right-minded Virginians to 
stay in that state in which it has pleased God 
to call them.” 

Miss Elizabeth wound up as though quoting 
from the Episcopal catechism. Peachey smoth¬ 
ered a giggle, something she must often do when 
in the presence of Cousin Lizzie. It had been 
the girl’s intention to tell Miss Somer of her 
engagement to Price Winston before that young 
man should arrive in Richmond, but it was dif¬ 
ficult to commence now that she was so full of 
food and Miss Lizzie so full of contention. 


146 Masquerading Mary 

“ Er — er — 'Cousin Lizzie, you remember 
Price Winston, don’t you?” 

“ Of course I remember him. A very bad 
boy he was indeed. He belonged to a wicked 
crowd of youths who called themselves ‘ The 
Hoodlums ’ and used to steal ice cream freezers 
from the back porches of persons who were giv¬ 
ing entertainments. They also made a practice 
of stealing ash barrels and having great bon¬ 
fires which they kept up all Christmas Eve until 
dawn broke on Christmas day. They made 
night hideous with their howls and no ash bar¬ 
rel was sacred to them. Yes indeed, I remember 
Price Winston quite well. What about him?” 

“Well, he — he — isn’t quite as bad as he 
used to be.” 

“ He might be better and not be good.” 

Peachey smothered another giggle and began 
again. 

“ Cousin Lizzie, you are our nearest relative, 
Henry’s and mine.” 

“Not at all! You have at least twenty-five 
cousins on the Henry and Marshall side that 
are quite as close as I am. I am your nearest 
Meade and Somer kinswoman, but you have 
three kinsmen on that branch who are equally 
close. You have a very bad head for genealogy. 
Stupid of you. If you had given as much time to 


147 


Masquerading Mary 

finding out something about your own family as 
you have wasting time on the study of French 
and reading foolish modern literature, you would 
know the difference between first and second 
cousins, and first cousins, once removed and sec¬ 
ond cousins once removed. Virginia Wilson, 
who has very little sense, knows more about her 
husband’s family than you do. Of course she 
has very little family of her own with which it 
is necessary to keep up. Speaking of Virginia, 
did you know she is making a fool of herself in 
a new and original way? Well, she is! She 
has got a white nurse for her baby. Absurd! 
As though a negro mammy were not good 
enough for this child!” 

“Have you seen the nurse?” asked Peachey. 
“ Virginia phoned me about her last night. I 
think she might be a good thing for poor Vir¬ 
ginia, who has had a time with housemaids and 
nurses. Of course Uncle Cy and Aunt Maria 
are fixtures and they are always objecting to 
the younger servants. Virginia tells me she has 
a girl from the country now, one of Aunt 
Maria’s nieces, that she is trying to train. She 
says the new English girl gets along splendidly 
with the colored servants, also with the chauf¬ 
feur. Did you say you had seen her? ” 

“ I did not say. You ask a question and then 


148 Masquerading Mary 

rattle along so I have no time to answer it. A 
very bad habit in the young, asking questions 
and rattling. When you ask a question you 
should pause for a reply. One forgets what the 
question is when you pour forth a stream of 
conversation not relative to it.” 

“ Sorry! ” said Peachey, trying not to laugh. 

“ There you are, being ultra modern. Saying 
sorry is no way to beg one’s pardon. I don’t 
know what the world is coming to when young 
persons don’t even know the proper form of 
apology.” 

“All right, Cousin Lizzie! Please excuse me 
and I humbly beg your pardon, although just 
what for I am not quite sure. Perhaps you can 
remember.” 

Miss Somer could not recall just in what way 
her young cousin had offended, so she snorted 
noisily while Peachey smiled behind the Times- 
Dispatch. 

“ Have you, Cousin Lizzie? ” 

“ Have I what? ” 

“ Seen Virginia’s English nursery gover¬ 
ness? ” 

“No! What is more I have no desire to see 
her. Nursery governess indeed! A child should 
have a negro mammy until it is four years old 
and then a younger negro nurse until it is seven 


149 


Masquerading Mary 

and then, if it is a male child, it should be sent 
to school. If it is a female, then a governess is 
quite appropriate. In my youth every family 
of any means employed a governess. As a rule 
the governess was a poor relation who had to be 
supported anyhow. Since she already belonged 
to the family, she was taken in as a member of 
the family. I understand that Virginia says this 
English girl is quite a lady, and yet she is not 
allowed to eat with the family. Of course she 
is not quite a lady or she would not be willing 
to occupy this menial position.” 

“ Perhaps it is her poverty and not her will 
that consents,” suggested Peachey. 

“ Nonsense! If a person is a lady she 
wouldn’t let Virginia Wilson make her eat in 
the kitchen. It is an easy matter to quell Vir¬ 
ginia Wilson if one sets about it.” 

“ Perhaps the poor girl has never ‘ set about 
it.’ Maybe she prefers eating in the kitchen. I 
am sure I’d much rather do it than force myself 
where I wasn’t wanted. I’d rather like eating 
in Aunt Maria’s kitchen. I’m sure I used to 
like it when I was a little girl and she would 
lift batty cakes right off the stove on to my 
plate.” 

“ Plebian tastes! ” 

And thus ended Peachey Meade’s interview 


150 Masquerading Mary 

with Cousin Lizzie. The girl could not bring 
herself to discuss her engagement with one who 
was so combative. It amused her that her old 
relation should be so cantankerous, but at the 
same time it irritated her to be treated like a 
child. She had been her own mistress for so 
many years, and led such an independent exist¬ 
ence, that Miss Somer’s autocratic mandates 
concerning her speech and actions forced her to 
the conclusion that she would cut short her visit 
to Mrs. Leander Peake’s select and fashionable 
boarding house. 


CHAPTER XV 


Spring in the air! Monroe Park, that Gar¬ 
den of Eden for Richmond babies and nurses, 
was at its loveliest. Beds of iris, Richmond’s 
own flower, were resplendent with purple and 
yellow. The fountain leapt high in the air, as 
though entering into the play of the children 
who ran around its circular basin. The benches 
were rapidly filling with colored nurses, old and 
young. 

Two mammies sought the shade of a linden 
tree, where stood a bench with a pleasantly 
slanting back. They sat down ostentatiously, 
spreading out their starched purple calico 
dresses as an intimation to other nurses that the 
seat was full. They drew close the baby car¬ 
riages in which their charges lay and gently 
shook them as they talked. 

“How is yer, Sis Celie? This here Spring 
wedder done foun’ out my weakness. My jints 
is pow’ful stiff wi’ the rheumatiz.” 

“ Same here, Sis Sukey! My baby done had 
me out’n the baid mo’n half the night. Missus 
151 


152 Masquerading Mary 

say she cuttin’ teef, but it looks mo’ ter me lak 
the teef air cuttin’ the baby.” They both 
laughed happily with deep, pleasant chuckles. 

“ Look yonder cornin’,” said Aunt Sukey as 
Mary entered the park, slowly pushing the car¬ 
riage in which lay Henry Marshall Meade IV. 
“ Look yonder, Sis Celie! That’s the new white 
nuss what Miss ’Ginia Wilson done hired. You 
know Miss ’Ginia Wilson, the one what married 
Marse Henry Meade? They do say she wa’ 
pow’ful uplifted by the matermony she done 
committed. Co’se the Wilsons is newer folks 
than the Marshalls an’ Henrys an’ Meades.” 

“ How come she tuck a notion fer a white 
nuss? ” asked Aunt Celie. “ Ain’t a black mam¬ 
my been good enough fer all the Henrys an’ 
Marshalls an’ Meades what air gone befo’?” 

“ Sho, sho! But Miss ’Ginia’s bent on the 
lates’ style in ev’ything. She don’t call this here 
nuss a plain nuss. No’m, she call her a gubber- 
nuss — English gubbernuss. Gawd knows what 
she’s gonter gubber. The baby ain’t much mo’n 
bawn.” 

“ Lawd, Lawd, sister, this here worl’s a git- 
tin’ too fas’ fer you’n me. Didn’t I hear a 
young mother say that she didn’t believe in no 
kind of spankin’s fer chilluns but pre-natal ones? 
The po’ little untried lamb meant jes’ a takin’ 


153 


Masquerading Mary 

of herself ter task befo’ the baby wa’ bawn.” 

The old women rocked with laughter, emit¬ 
ting deep chuckles the while. As Mary ap¬ 
proached they drew their bandanna kerchiefed 
heads close together and whispered. 

“ Somehow, this here white gubbernuss ’minds 
me er quality. She’s got a high steppin’ look 
ter her that po’ white folks can’t git,” said Aunt 
Sukey. 

“ Sho she is! Whar’d you say Marse Henry 
Meade’s wife done pick her up?” 

“ I hear tell the Worthy Mother down at the 
XYWZ phomed up to Miss ’Ginia that there 
wa’ a English gubbernuss there wid a letter er 
’medation from the noblebility, an’ Miss ’Ginia 
wa’ so scairt that one of the smart-Aleck set 
what she goes with would git ahaid of her that 
she had her lim’zine hitched up in the dead er 
night an’ had the girl fotched up ter Marse 
Henry’s.” 

Mary seated herself on a near-by bench. The 
old colored women looked admiringly at her 
and with voices raised to an audible whisper, 
continued: 

“ She sho is pretty.” 

“Ain’t it the truf?” 

“ Good morning — both of you,” said Mary, 
smiling her appreciation of the compliment. “ I 


154 Masquerading Mary 

hope your babies are well. Mine sleeps all the 
time.” 

“ The Henrys an’ Marshalls an’ Meades is all 
good sleepers,” said Aunt Celia. “ I have nussed 
po’tions of all of them at one time or anudder 
an’ I knows.” 

“ When does a baby get so it can sit up and 
take notice?” asked Mary. 

The old women interchanged sly nudges and 
winks. Aunt Sukey spoke: 

“You call yo’self nussin’ an’ arsk sech a ques¬ 
tion? Why bless yo’ sweet life, honey, they’s 
never no tellin’. Some babies is bawn settin’ up 
an’ takin’ notice, an’ some lives ter be mos’ a 
hun’erd an’ dies ’thout ever takin’ notice.” 

Mary laughed happily. The old women 
smiled at the clear note of merriment and 
nodded knowingly at each other. 

“Umhum! What’d I tell you?” said one in 
a low tone. 

“ Ain’t it the truf ? That there keerless laugh 
shows she ain’t no po’ white any mo’n a mockin’ 
bird is po’ white.” 

“ Another question, please — if you will not 
think I am too ignorant — why do both of you 
jiggle your prams all the time? Is that what 
nurses are supposed to do? ” 

“Is prams buggies?” asked Aunt Sukey. 


155 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Oh, yes, I meant the baby carriages,” Mary 
explained quickly. 

“We jes’ shakes ’em to keep ’em quiet.” 

“ But isn’t your baby asleep? ” 

“ Yassum, sleep so long as you keep it a 
movin’, but you jes’ lemme stop an’ you’ll hear 
from her.” She ceased the jiggling of the car¬ 
riage to illustrate and the baby immediately 
began to cry fretfully. “Umhum! What’d I 
tell yer? ” She began to shake the carriage and 
to pat the infant gently and in a rich deep voice, 
low and soothing, sang: 

“ Mammy went away — she tol’ me ter stay, 
An’ tek good keer er the baby, 

She tol’ me ter stay, an’ sing dis away: 

Oh, go ter sleepy, little baby! 

Oh, go ter sleep! sleepy little ba — 

Oh, go ter sleep little baby, 

Kase when you wake, you’ll git some cake, 
An’ ride a little white horsey! 

Aunt Celia took up the refrain in a high 
quaver that blended perfectly with Aunt Sukey’s 
contralto, and the old women walked up and 
down near Mary, shaking the carriages gently 
and crooning softly. 


156 Masquerading Mary 

“ We’ll stop up the cracks an’ sew up the seams; 

The Booger Man never shall ketch you! 

Oh, go ter sleep an’ dream sweet dreams — 

The Booger Man never shall ketch you! 

“Well, Henry Marshall Meade the Fourth, 
it’s a good thing for my education, and inci¬ 
dentally yours, that you do not have to be 
shaken constantly,” laughed Mary as she peeped 
lovingly at her charge and patted the heavily 
embroidered carriage robe covering the sleeping 
infant. Then she opened a book and commenced 
to read. Reading in the park had become as 
much a habit with the nursery governess as 
sleeping in the park was with the Meade baby. 
Mr. Meade’s library was a never ending delight 
to the girl. Books kept her from thinking about 
herself — that is, her past self. It was all right 
to think about her present self. She was a 
model nurse, living in a highly respectable home 
on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. 
Her life consisted in caring for a healthy baby 
with regular habits; eating marvelously good 
food — sometimes at a side table in the pantry, 
sometimes in the dining room when the family 
were not at home, sometimes in the pleasant 
kitchen where she could listen to the old cook’s 
wisdom as she dexterously handled her culinary 


157 


Masquerading Mary 

implements; and sleeping the sleep of the health¬ 
ily tired in her little room which, thanks to 
Blanche, boasted a “ curting ” and a “cyarpet.” 
Thanks to Mike, the little room also boasted a 
reading lamp. The kindly chauffeur had 
manipulated the electric wires so that the light 
hung low over the head of her bed. When the 
baby was settled for the night and was good for 
nine hours of sleep, Mary would go to her little 
room and read in bed until far in the night. 

She saw little of her employers. Every morn¬ 
ing Mrs. Meade had her report to her and went 
through the formality of giving orders for the 
day. Mary knew she was giving satisfaction 
from the telephone conversations she inadver¬ 
tently overheard. 

“Perfect, my dear, perfect! So regular, so 
quiet and well mannered, anyone could tell she 
has been only in the best homes. And have you 
seen her on the street with the baby? Her cos¬ 
tume is so picturesque — long blue cape and 
tight blue bonnet, you know, with white strings. 
Oh yes, her recommendation was from the no¬ 
bility — a Lady Mary Dale — such charming 
note paper with an embossed crest! ” 

Mary occasionally passed Mr. Meade in the 
halls or in the library when she was in search 
of a book. He it was who had given her access 


158 Masquerading Mary 

to his library. Mrs. Meade, being no reader 
herself, had never thought of books as being 
necessary to anyone, certainly not to an English 
nursery governess. But Henry Meade consid¬ 
ered reading as necessary as eating or sleeping, 
and when he wished to show anyone an especial 
favor, he offered the freedom of his library. 

What a blessing this library was to the gov¬ 
erness! There were even more books here than 
in the old book room remembered in her dreams. 
Henry Meade was a book lover and he came of 
a family of book lovers. He had inherited books, 
he bought books, and what time he could spare 
from his various business ventures was spent 
among his books. The library was the one room 
in the house that did not belong to his wife. It 
was his, a typical man’s room, and bore the im¬ 
print of his taste and the taste of the Henry 
Meades who had gone before him. Indeed, ex¬ 
cept for the modern publications, it might have 
been the library of either his father or grand¬ 
father. If Mrs. Meade had had her way with 
this room as she did with everything else, she 
would have had it papered with much lighter 
paper and the walnut wood work would have 
been enameled ivory white; the dark floor would 
have been made lighter and the frames on the 
Sully paintings and St. Memin drawings of an- 


159 


Masquerading Mary 

cestors would have been regilded. It worried 
and irritated the lady that there should be so 
dingy a spot in her well ordered house. Henry 
Meade could call it tone if he chose, but she 
called it downright dinginess. 

Mary was thankful that the library escaped 
Mrs. Meade’s brightening and lightening mania. 
It had a calm, sweet, old world atmosphere about 
it that appealed to her. Sometimes, when the 
baby was asleep and the master and mistress 
safely off for the evening, she would switch on 
the reading lamp, curl up in a great leather 
chair and read until she heard the latch key in 
the lock. Then she would fly up the back stairs 
to her room. There was no reason for flying, 
for Mr. Meade had told her to make herself at 
home in the library, but fly she always did, like 
a culprit fay. It was not so much flying from 
Mr. Meade as Mrs. Meade. She was tempted 
at times not to fly at all from Mr. Meade, but 
to stay and talk with him. She was sure she 
would like him. She must like a man who owned 
such a charming library and had a certain kind of 
twinkle in his eye. She wanted to talk about the 
books she was reading. In truth, she was bub¬ 
bling over with the desire to discuss those books 
with an intelligent person. She felt indeed that 
“ Reading maketh a full man.” 


160 Masquerading Mary 

The hardest part of the whole mixed up state 
of her life was that she had no intellectual com¬ 
panionship. Amusing companionship, yes, in 
the dear old colored servants, the adoring 
Blanche and the palapably admiring Mike; 
wholesome and pleasant companionship when she 
managed on rare occasions to see Miss Effie 
Sharp Burton. Those occasions were rare, ow¬ 
ing to the fact that Mrs. Meade had a cunning 
almost devilish in regard to the nurse’s after¬ 
noon off. There was always some excellent 
reason for postponing the holiday, and Mary 
good-naturedly allowed herself to be imposed 
upon. As for an evening off, it was almost 
unheard of. Mrs. Meade had the attitude of 
protecting the young English girl and there 
was no protection like allowing her to stay at 
home in a pleasantly luxurious house, inci¬ 
dentally minding a sleeping baby. 

It was amusing to note what an easy job 
it was in the mind of Mrs. Meade for Miss Mary 
to mind the baby, but what a stupendous un¬ 
dertaking it was when she must look after her 
own offspring. On those rare occasions she 
was a real martyr and the wires were kept hot 
informing her friends what a devoted mother 
she was. 

“ Of course I might have Blanche look after 


161 


Masquerading Mary 

baby, but Blanche is so foolish and you know 
how particular I am about Henry Marshall 
Meade the Fourth. I could not trust him with 
a raw, untrained nurse. I would have Aunt 
Maria take care of him but she is such an old 
grouch when she has to cook and nurse too. I 
am trying to get her to teach Blanche how to 
cook so when it is necessary Aunt Maria can 
nurse and Blanche can cook. But Henry says 
a dinner ruined is more important than spoiling 
a baby a bit. He says that the ruined dinner 
is so final. He says he has known very good 
men develop from had babies but a badly cooked 
dinner is beyond redemption. You know how 
Henry goes on. Indeed, I wish he wouldn’t he 
so silly. All of the Meades talk that way, at 
least Henry and his sister do. But I am so 
glad to be allowed to see something of baby. 
Of course it ties me down a lot, this thing of 
letting the nurse go for a whole afternoon. 
What she does with her time I cannot see. 
Goodness knows a baby is the easiest thing on 
earth to take care of. He is no trouble at all. 
I should think it would be recreation enough 
for her to wheel him to the park and sit there 
reading and sewing. She certainly has an easy 
job. Yes, I’ll be fagged to death by evening. 
Nursing wears me to a frazzle.” 


162 Masquerading Mary 

Thus she would rattle on. Mary could not 
but hear her ravings and her well earned holi¬ 
day would lose its zest. 

And so the days went on. The baby grew, 
sleeping and eating, and now a tooth was im¬ 
minent. Mary’s contours were becoming more 
rounded and the color on her soft cheek her¬ 
alded a return of the good health that had been 
so stressed in the letter of recommendation. 

There was much talk in the Meade household 
on the subject of Miss Peachey Meade’s return 
to Richmond. The servants were devoted to her 
and spoke of her in glowing terms. Long con¬ 
versations were carried on over the telephone by 
her sister-in-law. In them the blame was 
adroitly put upon Peachey and her peculiar dis¬ 
position because she did not make her home with 
her only brother. 

“ Her room here is always ready and waiting 
for her. No, it is not always convenient to keep 
a room ready and waiting, but you see Peachey 
is Henry’s sister. Of course I don’t feel that 
a room must be set aside for any of my relations 
— indeed, I often have to make them cut short 
their visits with me because of the possibility 
of Peachey’s coming home. When she came 
home from abroad we thought of course she 
would stay with us. 


163 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Yes indeed, I had the curtains all done up 
and bought a darling hooked rug, one I had 
been longing for. They are all the rage now. 
Of course when she would not stay but a few 
days and rushed off to Florida with the Spen¬ 
cers I did not leave the rug in her room. It 
really looks wonderful in my own. The colors 
harmonize much better with my draperies than 
with the ones in Peachey’s room — but that is 
neither here nor there. Yes, my dear, she is 
back in Richmond and visiting Miss Elizabeth 
Somer, Cousin Lizzie, you know, at Mrs. Lean- 
der Peake’s. So foolish of her! I can’t see why 
she should go there just when Price Winston 
is home on leave. Everybody knows a boarding 
house is no place in which to bring a young man 
to the point of proposing. They simply have 
no place where Peachey can receive guests. The 
parlor is as public as a park. Foolish of 
Peachey, yes! In this day and generation it 
isn’t so easy to bring a man to the point of pop¬ 
ping the question. Of course Peachey is young 
yet, but not so young that she can afford to be 
careless with a real chance like Price Winston.” 

The nursery governess overheard enough to 
make her curious to see this Peachey. She was 
more inclined to accept the judgment of the 
servants than of the mistress as to the young 


164 Masquerading Mary 

person’s disposition and peculiarities. The name 
Price Winston was familiar to her but she could 
not remember where she had heard it before. 
Miss Meade had called on her sister-in-law sev¬ 
eral times since she returned from Florida, but 
Mary had always been out with her charge. The 
name Peachey sounded pleasant and whole¬ 
some. She had seen it on the fly leaf of many 
of the books in Mr. Meade’s library: Peachey 
Marshall Meade, written in a firm, rather boy¬ 
ish hand. The sister evidently shared the broth¬ 
er’s bookish taste. No doubt before Virginia 
Wilson had come into the family, Henry and 
Peachey had read and talked and joked together 
in the pleasant library. Now Peachey was on 
the branch, as it were, and her books must have 
an abiding place on her brother’s shelves. 

One evening Mary found a little volume of 
John Keats tucked behind two great stupid 
tomes, an English edition like the one she had 
loved in the dear book room that she now re¬ 
membered as a dream. To Peachey from Price 
— was written on the fly leaf in small, clean, 
flowing chirography and dated many years ago. 
So the affair was of long standing! It was an 
intimate little book, marked and lined and with 
an occasional marginal note in the same clean 
masculine hand. It opened naturally at the Ode 


165 


Masquerading Mary 

to a Nightingale, and Mary read and, like Ruth, 
she wept, although there was no song of the im¬ 
mortal bird to remind her of home as it had 
Ruth. 

“ Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 
No hungry generations tread thee down; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
In ancient days by emperor and clown: 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for 
home, 

She stood in tears amid the alien corn.” 

Mary wept and then she laughed — laughed 
aloud in the quiet library. It was a marginal 
note that had made her laugh. 

So engrossed in her thoughts, her tears and 
her laughter, she did not hear the opening and 
shutting of the front door. It was Mr. Meade. 
As usual he came to the library, relieved to 
know that his wife would not be home for some 
time as she was playing bridge with an excite¬ 
ment eating crowd who always played late. He 
was sure of an uninterrupted hour of reading. 
He paused a moment at the open door. An 
unmistakable sob and then a bubble of laughter! 
Henry Meade already liked and admired the 


166 Masquerading Mary 

English Mary his wife had chosen to care for 
their baby. He respected her, too, but his ad¬ 
miration and respect were increased a hundred 
fold when the girl, with the poise of a princess, 
uncurled herself and sat up, wiped her eyes, 
blew her nose and laughed again. She didn’t 
say: “ Pardon my intrusion ! 99 or: “ You must 
think I am a foolish girl!” or make any other 
bromidic remark — she merely laughed and held 
out to him the little volume of Keats, opened at 
the Ode To a Nightingale. 

44 Isn’t this marginal note amusing? ” 

He read the annotation aloud: 

44 4 Wouldn’t “Alien Corn ” be an intriguing 
title for a novel? Too suggestive of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, think you, or perhaps the 
Prohibition Movement?”’ 

Henry Meade laughed, too. 44 That’s Price 
Winston — a fine fellow with a nice humor. He 
is a great one for marginal notes. All right if 
he does it on his own books, but I must say I 
don’t fancy it on mine. However, this volume 
belongs to my sister Peachey. Have you met 
my sister yet? You’d like her a lot.” 

44 No, not yet! I am sure she is charming. 
Please let me tell you, Mr. Meade, how much 
I am enjoying your books. I wish you would 
recommend a history of the United States for 


167 


Masquerading Mary 

me to study. You see, I am very ignorant and 
must coach myself to be in readiness for the 
baby. He is cutting a tooth now and it will 
not be long before I shall have to begin to teach 
him of George Washington and — and — but 
really I don’t know who the others are, at least 
not many of them. If I study diligently, how¬ 
ever, I may qualify in time.” 

Her tone was light and arch but absolutely 
lacking in coyness. Henry Meade found John 
Fiske’s History of the United States for her. 
She tucked it under her arm together with the 
volume of Keats and with a “Thank you!” 
and “ Good night! ” was gone. 

Henry Marshall Meade sat late over his cigar, 
long after his wife had come home triumphantly 
bearing the prize won at the bridge party. He 
pretended he had some work to do and, after 
duly admiring the bridge prize, persuaded her to 
go on up to bed. The fact that Virginia was 
constantly winning prizes at bridge, confirmed 
her husband in his opinion that card sense was a 
gift not always vouchsafed the intellectual. 

His thoughts as he smoked were of the 
nursery governess who could cry and laugh in 
the same breath and blow her nose and uncurl 
herself from a leather chair on being discovered 
by the master of the house and never lose one 


168 Masquerading Mary 

whit of ease and dignity. He marveled at her 
ease and grace. 

“And those lines had made her weep, poor 
little thing! I wonder why she is here. Why 
she ever left England. 

“ The self-same song that found a path 
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for 
home 

She stood in tears amid the alien corn.” 

“ Poor kid, she is surely £ amid the alien corn * 
in this household. I think I’ll put Peachey on 
to helping her a bit. She must need intellectual 
companionship. I’m glad she likes my books 
and I wish I could do something to help her 
— but Virginia wouldn’t stand for my playing 
Naomi to her Ruth. Virginia would be sure 
to make out I was trying to pose as Boaz.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


“ Excuse me, Miss, for interrupting you, 
but the Missus has sent the baby’s milk.” 

It was that morning in spring when Mary 
had made the acquaintance of Aunt Celia and 
Aunt Sukey and they had finally gone off 
wheeling their baby carriages, singing the sweet 
old Negro melody. Mary had lost herself first in 
the little blue volume of Keats and later in 
the history lent her by Mr. Meade. The baby 
still slept. 

“Excuse me, Miss!” 

Mary looked up. It was Mike, humbly hold¬ 
ing out a baby’s bottle. Mike, the proud chauf¬ 
feur, had demurred over being milk boy during 
the regime of the likely colored girl, Miss 
Mary’s predecessor, but now he eagerly sought 
the privilege of bringing the milk bottle to 
Monroe Park for the fore-noon feeding of Mas¬ 
ter Henry Marshall Meade IV. 

“ Oh, thank you so much, Mike. Tell me, do 
you know anything about babies?” 

“ Yes, Miss, all there is to know, I’m think- 
169 


170 Masquerading Mary 

ing. Some men are born babies; some acquire 
babies; and some have babies thrust upon them. 
Now, I’ve done all of these things.” 

“Oh, Mike!” 

“ Sure, and wasn’t I born a baby?” 

“ Yes!” 

“ And didn’t I acquire babies by matri¬ 
mony? ” 

“Mike, are you married?” 

“ Naw, not on your life! ’Twas me father 
married the black Irish widder with six. And 
for the last — death thrust them upon me.” 

“Your father died?” 

“ No, the black Irish widow,” said Mike, dis¬ 
gust depicted on his pleasant freckled face. 
“ Now it takes all the grand chauffeur wages to 
keep the wolf from the door. My old man was 
never much of a provider. But why did you 
want me to be telling you what I knew about 
babies? ” 

“ Poor Mike, I am sorry for you, but it is 
good to be working for something and I am 
sure the children love you. This is what I want 
to ask you: the baby is asleep and it is time for 
his feeding — should I awaken him?” 

“ Shhh! Never! It is bad luck and bad busi¬ 
ness to wake the little shavers.” 

“ How can I keep his milk warm so long? ” 


171 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Sit on it, Miss, sit on it! I have seen the 
black Irish widow do it many a time.” 

Mary laughed so heartily at the suggestion 
that the baby stirred, opened his eyes and cried. 

“ Here my pet, here is your luncheon,” said 
Mary, leaning over the baby, who immediately 
turned his tears into gurgling laughter as he 
clutched the proffered bottle. “ Isn’t he a little 
greedy, though? Oh, Mike, I do love this little 
creature! ” 

“ Sure you do — but tell me. Miss Mary, isn’t 
this your afternoon off? ” 

“ Perhaps it is, I really don’t pay very much 
attention to my afternoon off,” answered Mary 
indifferently. 

“Well, I remember, and I’ll tell you this — 
if you forget, the Missus won’t be the one to be 
after reminding you. The Missus is booked for 
a card party this afternoon and nothing would 
please her more than have you keep on forget¬ 
ting. She is afraid of the cook, and that’s the 
truth, and if she goes out the cook will have to 
keep care of the kid. Mr. Meade has put his 
foot down on the subject of trusting the house 
girl with his son and heir. I heard him hand¬ 
ing it out to the Missus not so long ago, just 
after that time Blanche turned on the gas oven 
and forgot to light it. And now, Miss Mary, 


172 Masquerading Mary 

I’m wondering if whilst the Missus is at the 
card party if there is any reason why we 
shouldn’t take in the movies, you and me. 
Cinema, I believe you call it.” 

Mary gasped and stood up. She held her 
pretty head very high and her sensitive nostrils 
quivered. 

“ I don’t understand you.” Her tone was 
cold and dignified. Could it be that this boy 
was actually inviting her to go to a picture 
show with him? It was unbelievable. 

“ Easy enough to understand,” muttered 
Mike. “ I only asked you for a date. No insult 
intended, but forget it, forget it!” 

A gurgle from the baby brought Mary back 
to solid earth again. She was nothing but a 
nurse maid in Richmond, Virginia. Why 
shouldn’t a pleasant spoken young chauffeur 
ask her to go to a motion picture show? She 
smiled sadly. 

“Thank you, Mike, you are very kind to 
wish to give me an outing, but if you spend 
money taking me to a cinema I am afraid the 
six little babies you have had thrust upon you 
will be deprived of something.” 

“ I know full well I am not fit to be asking 
the likes of you to go out with me, but just say 
so, Miss, and don’t lay it on the innocent lambs 


173 


Masquerading Mary 

at home.” It was Mike’s turn to be dignified 
and he took it. 

“ Oh, Mike, don’t think that. In London a 
chauffeur holds himself way above a nurse maid. 
I shall be glad to go with you.” 

“ Now you are talking!” cried the boy de¬ 
lightedly. “ After I take the Missus to the 
card party I’ll run you down in the car. We 
can get back home before her game is done. 
So long!” and Mike went whistling down the 
winding walk of Monroe Park, as proud as an 
Irish king. 

“ Mary, Mary, more than usual contrary, 
what have you done now? ” and again the vision 
of a hateful old woman in England arose in her 
mind’s eye and she laughed at the thought of 
what that old woman would say at this jaunt 
planned for the afternoon. Henry Marshall 
Meade IV merely kicked and crowded as he 
drained the last drop from his bottle. 

Aunt Celia and Aunt Sukey turned at the 
sound of the lilting laugh. 

“ What’d I tell you, Sis Celie? Jes’ lak a 
blackbird! ” 

“ Ain’t it the truf ? ” 

Mary resumed her reading of the History of 
the United States and the contented infant 
played with a sunbeam that danced on the em- 


174 Masquerading Mary 

broidered robe which covered his wiggling feet. 

The benches were filling. Nurses were there 
with their charges and several colored couples 
had established themselves nearby. In the book 
the Nina and Pinta and Santa Maria were just 
sighting land when Mary’s ear was arrested by 
a voice she was sure she had hear before. She 
looked up and beheld Miss Elizabeth Somer 
approaching, and by her side a charmingly 
dressed young woman with a piquant, almost 
pretty face, and an altogether pretty figure. 
She had fairy feet and hands and her expres¬ 
sion was like that of a humorous elf. 

Not that Mary could remember Miss Eliza¬ 
beth Somer’s name. She remembered her voice 
and her thin lipped countenance, also the unmis¬ 
takable snort with which she voiced her disap¬ 
proval of the colored couples — nurses and their 
accompanying swains — who were occupying 
the benches while their charges dug up the walks 
with their little spades or played “ I spy ” 
around a monument erected to a worthy citizen 
of Richmond. 

“ The park is entirely given up to Negroes 
lately. I certainly intend to write a letter to 
the paper about it.” Miss Somer was always 
writing a letter to the paper about something. 

“ But, Cousin Lizzie, they have to be some- 


175 


Masquerading Mary 

where,” said Peachey, who had a tender place 
in her heart for all girls, black or white, and 
especially those who had no place in which to 
entertain their suitors. 

“ Somewhere is not everywhere,” retorted 
Miss Somer. 

There was no use in combating such a self 
evident truth, so Peachey smiled sweetly and 
stopped to admire the baby Aunt Celia was 
wheeling back and forth. 

“ Well, Celia, I am glad to see you have gone 
back to work,” boomed Miss Somer, as she 
recognized the old woman. 

“I ain’t never stopped wuckin’, Miss Lizzie. 
I wa’n’t in service fer quite a spell ’cause my 
daughter wa’ a teachin’ an’ I had ter be home 
ter cook an’ wash fer her. Whilst I wa’n’t a 
wuckin’ out I wa’ a wuckin’ in, an’ wuckin’ 
hard at that. Teachers have ter have a passel 
er clean white waises an’ my gal wanted ’em 
done up same as white folks.” 

“ Well, who is doing them up for her now? ” 
and Miss Elizabeth sniffed disdainfully. 

“ Lawsamussy, Miss Lizzie,” broke in Aunt 
Sukey, “ ain’t you done heard tell about Sis 
Celie’s chil’? She done married in lit’rary 
suckles, that bright skinned gal er Celie’s has. 
She don’t have ter teach no mo’ an’ kin hire 


176 


Masquerading Mary 

somebody ter cook fer her if she has a mind.” 

“ Literary circles, Aunt Celie! What does 
your son-in-law write? ” asked Peachey. 

“ Well, he don’t ’zactly write nothin’ hisse’f, 
he jes’ ’stributes the writin’s er others. He’s 
a postman, Miss Peachey.” 

Another snort from Miss Somer, while 
Peachey smiled. 

“ Whose baby is this you are nursing, 
Sukey? ” asked Miss Somer, with the air of 
a revenue officer. 

“Miss John Miller’s, Miss Lily White as 
was. I ain’t the reg’lar nuss, but is jes’ substi- 
tutinizin’ fer ’Mandy Jackson whilst she lays 
up a spell an’ gits back some er the insuriance 
she been payin’ out on fer sich a long time 
’thout no satisfaction.” 

“If she is not ill she should be reported for 
fraudulent dealings,” declared the interlocutor. 

“ Oh, the doctor done seed to it that she’s 
sick enough,” chuckled Aunt Sukey. 

“ Well, you tell Mrs. Miller that I say this 
baby is entirely too thinly clad for this weather. 
I am sure she is well wrapped up herself.” 

“ Why, Cousin Lizzie,” said Peachey, “ I am 
roasting hot.” 

“ You are not a baby. Babies must be 
clothed more than grown persons.” 


177 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Miss Lizzie/’ spoke Aunt Sukey, 44 if you 
or little Miss Peachey hears tell of a good home 
in the West End, I wisht you would remember 
me.” 

“ Indeed I will,” said Peachey kindly. 

4 4 1 have something to discuss with my friends 
besides servants and am not likely to hear of a 
suitable place/’ was Miss Somer’s reply. 

The mammies wheeled off their babies, evi¬ 
dently much disgruntled and subdued. They 
no longer hummed their sweet lullaby and 
showed dejection in every motion. Mary, hop¬ 
ing to escape the notice of Miss Somer, bent 
low over her book. She had heard the old col¬ 
ored nurses call the young woman Miss Peachey, 
and she jumped to the conclusion that it must 
be Miss Peachey Meade. She felt vaguely that 
she had seen her somewhere before. There was 
something familiar about her voice and manner, 
the poise of her head and daintily turned wrist 
and ankle. She seemed to belong to another 
world, to the old life left behind before the days 
of minding a baby. 

44 Cousin Lizzie,” said Peachey, settling her¬ 
self on a bench nearby, 44 1 am going to stop 
here and wait for Price Winston. I promised 
to meet him on the Franklin Street side of the 
park.” 


178 Masquerading Mary 

“ You’ll do nothing of the kind! In my day 
young women received their callers in their 
father’s parlors.” Miss Somer’s voice sounded 
like a sergeant’s drilling an awkward squad. 

“ Well, I haven’t a father, and therefore no 
father’s parlor, so the park seems a good com¬ 
promise.” 

“ I only hope it will not prove compromis¬ 
ing. Price Winston is entirely too Frenchified 
since he became secretary to the Ambassador at 
the Court of St. James. You are too young 
to know what is best for you.” 

“ You just reminded me I was no baby,” 
laughed Peachey. “There’s a newsboy! I’ll 
get a paper and read until Price comes.” 

Determination was expressed in every one of 
Peachey Meade’s sixty-two inches. She turned 
a duck’s back on Miss Somer’s flow of indig¬ 
nant eloquence and opened her newspaper. 

“Very well! Make yourself conspicuous if 
you want to, I’m through,” she rumbled, and 
turned on an indignant heel. In turning, she 
suddenly became aware of poor Mary, who had 
crouched down behind the baby carriage. 

“ This must be Virginia Wilson’s baby,” she 
snapped. 

“ Mrs. Henry Marshall Meade’s, madam,” 
said Mary, with exaggerated respect. 


179 


Masquerading Mary 

“ I am well aware of that, young woman.” 
(Heaven be praised, she did not recognize Mary 
as the girl from the boarding home!) “ I em¬ 
broidered this carriage robe. That is how I 
knew whose baby it was. By the way, it has 
been very badly laundered. Did you do it up? ” 

“No, madam!” 

“ If your mistress were not so bent on new 
fashions, she would employ a good Negro nurse 
who would wash for the baby. I fancy you 
do nothing but nurse.” 

“ Nothing! ” 

“ Tell Mrs. Meade that I say this baby is 
entirely too warm. I’ll be bound that like most 
mothers she is making herself perfectly com¬ 
fortable and putting all the wraps on the baby.” 

‘‘Yes, madam!” 

“ You may also tell Mrs. Meade that I am 
coming to supper with her to-night. I hope it 
is supper and not one of those indigestible late 
dinners. It would be like Virginia Wilson to 
.forget the habit of her forefathers, or at least 
her husband’s forefathers — she had none worth 

b. 

remembering or if she did their habits were not 
distinguished enough to note. What time does 
she have supper?” 

“Mrs. Meade dines at seven.” 

“Well, tell her I am coming to supper, not 


180 Masquerading Mary 

dinner. What are you reading? ” She took 
Mary’s book from her hand without so much 
as “ by your leave.” “ History of the United 
States? ” 

“Yes, madam, I am desirous of preparing 
myself to instruct Master Henry Marshall 
Meade the Fourth in the history of his own 
country, of which I am sadly ignorant. By 
the time the little boy is old enough to receive 
instruction, no doubt I shall be fully qualified.” 
Mary spoke in an exaggerated mincing tone as 
though she had been acting the part of a spin¬ 
ster governess. 

Miss Somer looked at her sharply and de¬ 
cided she did not like the nursery governess. 
She rapidly turned the leaves of the history. 
“Ah! Written by a Yankee, I see.” 

“ Certainly! Aren’t all Americans Yankees? ” 
The crowning insult! Lines from Scott that 
Mary had learned at school came to mind when 
she beheld Miss Somer holding the history at 
arm’s length. 

“ Burned Marmion’s swarthy cheek like fire. 
And shook his very frame for ire.” 

How was the English girl to know that no 
insult is equal to the one of calling an unre- 


181 


Masquerading Mary 

constructed Southerner a Yankee? Miss Somer 
did not deign to reply to whether or not all 
Americans were Yankees, but with the most 
commanding tone she could assume, she said: 

“ I shall use my influence with my cousin, 
Mr. Meade, to have such pernicious literature 
kept out of his house. Where did you get it? ” 

“ From Mr. Meade’s library. He recom¬ 
mended it.” 

Miss Somer returned the offensive book, hold¬ 
ing it by the tips of her fingers as though to 
avoid contamination. 

“ Well, you could much better employ your 
time with some sewing while you have nothing 
to do. A little rolling and whipping on some 
dainty clothes for the baby would be excellent.” 

“ I am afraid I can’t sew much better than I 
can wash,” and Mary laughed her inimitable 
laugh. Miss Somer narrowed her eyes. She 
had heard that laugh before but she couldn’t 
remember where. Peachey looked up from her 
newspaper a moment. The lilt of the laugh 
stirred memories in her breast, too, but Mary 
was hidden behind the carriage and Miss Som- 
er’s voluminous black draperies. 

Miss Somer snorted like a war horse. The 
idea of a young person laughing because she 
could not sew. 


182 Masquerading Mary 

“Humph! You must have lived with very 
strange persons if they would put up with 
such incompetence. It’s strange how some peo¬ 
ple get along.” 

“ Yes, madam, very strange! ” 

“ Well, all I can say is that Virginia Wilson 
is a fool — but don’t forget to tell her that I 
am coming to supper.” 

When the irate lady had finally taken herself 
off, the park seemed to regain the peace and 
quiet that had been with it before her entrance. 
Aunt Celia and Aunt Sukey nudged each other 
and chuckled. 

“ I tell you, Sis Celie, Miss Lizzie is sumpen. 
She’s got all kinds er blood — maybe that’s how 
come she don’t worry herself none to be pleas¬ 
ant, bein’ as she ain’t been bawn pleasant. The 
mo’ I see of folks the mo’ I come to the ’elusion 
that there are ’ristocrats an’ ’ristocrats in this 
here worl’ of sin an’ sorrer.” 

“Ain’t it the truf, Sis Sukey?” 

They slowly moved off, pushing their baby 
carriages and singing: 

“ De ribber run wide, de ribber run deep, 

Oh, bye-oh, sweet little baby! 

De boat rock slow — shill rock you ter sleep, 

Oh, bye-oh, sweet little baby! ” 


183 


Masquerading Mary 

The park gradually emptied itself of nurses 
and their swains. Peachey Meade and Mary 
were practically alone, Mary still hidden behind 
the baby carriage and Peachey engrossed in her 
newspaper. Mary could not keep from won¬ 
dering if this was the same Peachey for whom 
a room was constantly kept in readiness in the 
home of Henry Marshall Meade III, and 
occasionally she cast sidelong glances in her 
direction. 


CHAPTER XVII 


“ Hello, Peaches! You are a nice girl to say 
4 Meet me in the park/ and then go bury your 
pretty nose in a newspaper so nobody can find 
you. How are you, darling? ” 

Peachey looked up from her paper, where she 
had apparently come upon an item that excited 
her. The troubled expression left her face 
when she gazed in the eyes of the tall, well 
groomed young man. Such pleasant eyes he 
had. In fact, everything about Price Winston 
was pleasant. He hardly looked the part of 
having been one of the boasted Hoodlums of 
Richmond whose depredations Miss Somer could 
not forget. 

44 Well, darling, how are you?” he repeated. 

44 Shhh! Price, don’t be so obvious. Cousin 
Lizzie Somer had a fit over my meeting you in 
the park and if she could hear you talk it would 
be her death.” 

44 Pity she can’t hear me then, the old hearse. 
Every time I come back to Richmond I find 
her in deeper mourning, although I don’t hear 

184 


185 


Masquerading Mary 

of any deaths in the immediate connection. 
Why, please, is she so swathed in black? ” 

“ Don’t make fun of her, Price. She is 
in mourning for the lost cause.” 

“ Oh, excuse me, but don’t you think after 
some fifty-eight or sixty years she might lighten 
her mourning a little — that is, go in second 
mourning? A dash of lavender, say?” 

“ Poor Cousin Lizzie! She has some mighty 
fine points.” 

“ Yes, I have noticed them — tongue and 
elbows and — ” 

“ Oh, Price, you silly — but I don’t want to 
quarrel with you about poor old Cousin Lizzie. 
I am too worried about a nasty scandal in the 
paper. Have you read it yet? ” 

“ Not very thoroughly. There seemed to be 
very little doing. I have been busy. That’s 
the reason I am late.” 

“ What is it?” 

“ A special delivery from an English friend 
that’s got me guessing. But what is up to 
worry you, dear little girl?” 

“ Don’t talk so loud, Price. The park is not 
quite empty,” glancing at Mary who has 
crouched more out of sight than before. “ It 
is this horrid thing in the foreign society letter. 
I always read them now.” 


186 Masquerading Mary 

“ Fitting yourself to be the wife of a diplo¬ 
mat, eh? Honey, you are already fit, as fit 
as fit.” 

“Only listen, Price!” Peachy read the bit 
from the paper in a high, excited voice. She 
seemed to forget that the park was not empty. 
1STo doubt the nurse behind the baby carriage 
was asleep anyhow, asleep or too stupid to 
follow the reading. “ London society is all agog 
over the disappearance of Lady Mary, wife of 
the Honourable Percy Darcy, the younger 
brother of the Earl of Trice. The vanished 
lady, before her marriage to the handsome 
guardsman, was Lady Mary Dale, the Irish 
belle and beauty who made such a hit in Lon¬ 
don last year. It is whispered that she has not 
gone alone, but is accompanied by a certain 

Captain H-, with whom she was closely 

associated in private theatricals in the autumn.” 

“Infamous! Outrageous!” exclaimed Price. 

“ But the worst is yet to come, if possible,” 
cried Peachey. “ Only listen: ‘ The Dowager 
of Trice is very indignant over Lady Mary’s 
treatment of her son and declares she will see 
to it that he institutes proceedings for divorce 
at once. The Honourable Percy has refused 
to be interviewed, but the dowager duchess, his 
mother, has courteously received all reporters 



187 


Masquerading Mary 

“ I’ll be bound she has! ” exclaimed Price. 
<c Poor old Percy’s mother is a Tartar for fair.” 

Peachey continued her reading: 

“ There is a rather peculiar financial situa¬ 
tion in this affair. A large fortune is owned 
jointly by this couple, provided they remain to¬ 
gether. It was left to them, by a relation they 
had in common, on condition that they marry 
each other. In deserting her husband, Lady 
Mary, according to the terms of the will, re¬ 
nounces all claim to the fortune. It now de¬ 
velops that the Honourable Percy refuses to 
touch a penny of it.” 

“That’s like him! A bully fellow!” cried 
Price. 

“And it is rumored he is on his way to 
America,” continued Peachey. 

Henry Marshall Meade IV might well have 
come to the conclusion that his English nursery 
governess was employing the methods used by 
the school of mammies, so violently was his 
pram jiggled when his Aunt Peachey, all un¬ 
conscious of his proximity, read aloud that the 
Honourable Percy Darcy had embarked for 
America. With a startled ejaculation Mary 
had sprung to her feet, but had as quickly sub¬ 
sided and sat cowering behind the baby car¬ 
riage with the history covering her face. 


188 Masquerading Mary 

“ Goodness, but I’m sorry for that fellow,” 
mused Price. 

“ But there is not a word of it true,” flared 
the girl. “ It couldn’t be. Don’t you remem¬ 
ber you took me to those private theatricals?” 

“ I should say I do remember.” 

“ It was the very nicest thing that happened 
to me on my trip. Don’t you remember, Price, 
Lady Mary Darcy had the leading part of the 
nurse maid and Captain Huntington was the 
young lord who fell in love with her — that is, 
he did in the play.” 

“ Yes, and I thought at the time that I was 
glad it was Lady Mary and not Miss Peachey 
Meade that the cad was hugging.” 

“ Oh silly, it was just in the play! ” 

“ All the same I was glad and I am gladder 
than ever now.” 

“ I can’t stand anyone believing anything 
horrid about that lovely Lady Mary. Least of 
all you, Price. I bet it was all her husband’s 
fault — that is, if anything at all has happened, 
which of course it hasn’t. But if it has, it is 
his fault.” 

“Hold on, Peachey! You don’t know what 
a fine fellow Darcy is. He is deserving of the 
title of Honourable if anyone ever was.” 

“ Oh, of course! Take up for the man and 


189 


Masquerading Mary 

believe the worst of the woman,” and Peachey’s 
tiny foot viciously kicked up the gravel of the 
walk. 

“ I never said I believed anything bad of 
either one of them. Anyhow, whether they are 
saints or devils, it isn’t going to make me have 
a row with you, sweetheart. What bothers me 
is that the letter that delayed me this morning 
is from Darcy. He is on his way to Richmond.” 

The Yankee history fell to the ground with 
a thud, but Mary recovered it quickly. 

“ You mean Sir Percy? Is Lady Mary with 
him? ” 

“ How can she be, silly? Haven’t you just 
read that she has eloped with Captain Hunt¬ 
ington? ” 

“ But that’s a lie, silly yourself — I mean 
what the paper said is a lie. I tell you Lady 
Mary has as much a right to the title of lady 
as old Percy has to that of honourable. What 
does he say in his hateful letter?” 

Price laughed. 

“ There really is no use in your getting so 
huffy, honey. I think I can see to read the 
letter better if you let me hold your hand while 
I am doing it. There, nobody can see us. You 
might even — no ? —all right. I reckon you are 
right. Well, he says he is thinking of engaging 


190 Masquerading Mary 

in some business venture in the States and wishes 
to consult me before he takes the plunge. These 
are his words: c A financial necessity having 
arisen which makes it necessary for me to earn 
my living —’ Um! It does look as though 
there were some kind of truth in this scandal.” 

Peachey jumped up from the park bench. 

“ Price Winston, if you say that again, I 
declare I’ll never speak to you again.” 

“ Why, Peaches! I can’t see that the reputa¬ 
tion of Lady Mary Darcy is so much to you. 
You hardly know her.” 

“ I don’t care. I simply adore her. She 
was so sweet to me that night after the theatri¬ 
cals. We had a nice little talk of almost a 
minute, and I just know she is good, as well as 
beautiful. I’d believe her no matter wdiat an 
old newspaper said. Those foreign scandal let¬ 
ters are dreadful, anyway. She, herself, couldn’t 
make me believe in her wickedness.” 

Again the pram was jiggled and Mary sprang 
to her feet. There was a radiant glow on her 
face. 

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that,” said 
Price. “ I fancy any woman could convince 
me of her wickedness if she set her mind to it.” 

“Price, could I?” 

“No, not you! You could only convince me 


191 


Masquerading Mary 

of being about the sweetest thing in Richmond.” 

“ Only Richmond? ” 

“All America!” 

“ Aha! I knew all the time you had a 
sweetheart in England,” teased the girl. 

“What a Peachey!” sighed Price. “But to 
come back to Lady Mary. I liked her a lot — ” 

“ Liked her! I loved her, the poor, sweet, 
put-upon thing. Do you remember, Price, 
dear, how she looked in the pretty nurse’s cos¬ 
tume standing before Captain Huntington — 
when he suddenly realizes the nurse is the true 
aristocrat? I can see her now.” 

Peachey’s eyes widened. She became con¬ 
scious of the proximity of the English nurse 
for the first time. Mary’s agitation was pa¬ 
thetic. The two girls looked in each other’s 
eyes. The English girl was the first to recover 
her composure. She put a warning finger on 
her lips and sank down behind the carriage, 
her head on her arm. 

“ Well, honey,” said Price, unconscious of 
the situation, “ there is no use in getting so 
wrought up over it. You are actually pale and 
trembling. I don’t believe Mrs. Leander Peake 
nourishes you sufficiently. Anyhow you’ll be 
better fed this evening. I’ve seen to that. You 
see, I stopped in to see your brother Henry this 


192 Masquerading Mary 

morning about this business scheme of Darcy’s 

— at his home I mean. I saw Virginia and was 
indiscreet enough to mention the fact that a live 
member of the nobility was on his way to Rich¬ 
mond and now we are booked for dinner this 
very evening — you and Darcy and I.” 

“Are you sure I am expected?” 

“ I should say I am. In fact, you are the 
party. I told Virginia I was to see you in 
the park and she commissioned me to invite you. 
I hope to Heaven Virginia won’t see this foreign 
letter in the paper and connect it up with 
Darcy.” 

Peachy laughed hysterically. 

“ She is sure to, Price. Don’t you know 
Virginia well enough to know she will take par¬ 
ticular pains to read this part of the paper so 
she will have a topic to discuss with her Eng¬ 
lish guest? This foreign society news always 
appeals to poor Virginia. The point is that 
your Percy might see it and it would make him 
feel rather sore, I should think. Is it too late 
to stop Virginia — I mean her dinner party?” 

“ Not Virginia! I left her phoning like mad 
for frying sized chickens. It is to be a typical 
old-fashioned Virginia supper. My suggestion 

— supposed to be to please Darcy, but it is 
really to satisfy my own inner man. When I 


193 


Masquerading Mary 

come home I can’t get enough of this old Vir¬ 
ginia cooking. Umm — waffles! I also sug¬ 
gested that she ask a typical old southern lady; 
the sweet, mellow kind like Mrs. Puss Johnson. 
Virginia was so grateful to me for my English 
lion that she readily consented to my suggestions 
concerning the other guests.” 

“ If you are going to meet that noon train 
you had better hurry.” 

“You’ll be nice to Darcy, won’t you?” 

“ If you promise to think only kind things 
of Lady Mary, no matter what you hear.” 

“ I promise, honey — say, Peachey, there is 
not a soul in sight but a stupid nurse who has 
gone to sleep behind her baby buggy. Couldn’t 
you? Just one?” 

“ You know perfectly well I couldn’t, Price 
Winston. Go on and meet your pet Duke. I’ll 
see you this evening.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


“ Lady Mary! ” Peachey put her hand gently 
on the shaking shoulder of the English nurse. 

“ Oh — oh — oh,” sobbed Mary. “ I — I — ” 

“Can’t you look up and talk to me? I am 
Peachey Meade. I met you at Dorset last 
Autumn.” 

The sobbing girl made a desperate effort and 
controlled herself, even gave a laugh with a 
touch of its accustomed music. 

“ I never dreamed of meeting anyone I had 
ever known before. I remember you well but 
did not recall your name.” 

“ But I am so glad to see you again. I have 
thought of you so much. You must be glad to 
see me, too, or it will make me very sad.” 

“You dear little American!” 

The baby stirred in his sleep and Peachey 
noticed him for the first time. 

“ Why, Lady Mary, this is my own nephew, 
Henry Marshall Meade! What does this 
mean? ” 

“ It means I am this infant’s governess.” 

194 


195 


Masquerading Mary 

“You! Lady Mary Darcy? What would 
your belle mere say?” And then the two girls 
laughed and laughed. 

“ And you are the paragon my sister-in-law 
has told me about,” said Peachey. “ To think 
I have been back in Richmond for days and 
have not seen you before, although Virginia has 
been dying to show you off to me. Now tell 
me all about it.” 

“I will — everything from the beginning. I 
have felt as though I should burst, so great has 
been my desire to tell somebody all about it. 
What your paper says is true, except that I 
did not elope with Captain Huntington or Cap¬ 
tain anybody. I just eloped with myself.” 

“ I knew it! I knew it! ” cried Peachey hap- 

piiy- 

“ As for Captain Huntington — ” Mary 
snapped her fingers disdainfully, “ I have seen 
him only once since the private theatricals and 
then he was invited to Ensley by my husband’s 
mother. It was while I was convalescing from 
a long illness.” 

“ You have been ill, then. I am sorry.” 

“Yes, very ill. The theatricals at Dorset 
worked me too hard. I had a general break¬ 
down, but my getting well was a happy time — 
the happiest of all my life, I believe. That is 


196 Masquerading Mary 

what makes all the rest so bitter. You see, it 
was a terrible handicap to happiness to be 
thrown at each other as Percy and I were by 
that absurd old Great Aunt Bella, just like 
people in a trashy novel — a fortune if we 
married and nothing if we didn’t.” 

“ That was trying, though I am sure you 
cared for Sir Percy or you never would have 
married him,” said Peachey, giving Mary’s hand 
a squeeze. 

“ Oh, little American, it means so much to 
me to have you believe in me! I did love him 
and I thought he loved me — or else that for¬ 
tune would have been feeding and clothing a 
hundred English orphans, which was what it 
was destined to do in case Percy and I did not 
comply with Aunt Bella’s whim. Instead, it 
went to one Irish orphan, me, and one English 
half orphan, Percy.” 

“ He does love you. What makes you think 
he doesn’t? Are you sure?” 

“ As sure as his own actions can make me. 
His distress at my illness seemed so genuine, 
his tenderness so sincere, that if I had had any 
doubts as to his disinterested affection for me 
they would have been dispelled during my ill¬ 
ness and convalescence. We were closer to¬ 
gether than we had ever been. People who do 


197 


Masquerading Mary 

society as hard as we did it before our mar¬ 
riage and even just after, until my illness, are 
not able to be much together. Ah, that time 
at Ensley we were one in heart and soul. The 
only drawback was the dowager, who would 
visit us.” 

“ Yes, I remember the dowager duchess, an 
old woman with a hard face and a soft figure.” 

“Exactly! And her face is no harder than 
her heart. I made my debut in London under 
her wing and I know full well just what her 
heart is made of — that is, if she has a heart. 
She always hated me; seems instinctively to hate 
the Irish. Oh, by the way, dear little American, 
please don’t tell your sister-in-law that I am 
Irish. I obtained my situation through the sup¬ 
position that I was ‘ a well of English unde¬ 
filed’.” 

Peachey promised by a silent pressure of 
Mary’s hand. Then followed a tale of a mad 
London season chaperoned by the Dowager 
Duchess of Trice, financed by Great Aunt Bella 
who was great aunt-in-law to Sir Percy and 
great aunt to Lady Mary Dale. Aunt Bella 
held the whip hand over the Duchess of Trice 
by reason of the fortune which she had in her 
own right and the final disposition of which she 
kept a secret, but the dowager duchess always 


198 Masquerading Mary 

had hopes of inheriting a comfortable portion. 
At any rate it was to her interest to comply with 
any demand made by Aunt Bella, and bring¬ 
ing Lady Mary Dale out in London society was 
one of those demands. 

“ Oh, but she hated it and hated me. Percy 
and I had known each other as children at 
Ensley, Aunt Bella’s home, and when we met 
again in London his mother did all she could 
to keep us apart. Then poor old Aunt Bella 
died leaving that ridiculous will and then the 
Duchess of Trice pretended to love me very 
much and hastened up the wedding. Then I 
had a case of mother-in-lawitis. I was never 
alone with my husband — always that old 
woman. She had expected to inherit Ensley 
herself and she behaved as though she had. 
Percy is the only one of her children who had 
any filial feeling and she imposed on him. But 
still I am grateful to her now because she 
opened my eyes to the perfidy of her son. It 
hurt her too, because she does love him, I 
believe, but she could not let me remain in 
darkness as to his flagrant immorality.” 

“I don’t believe a word of it!” declared 
Peachey stoutly. 

“ But little American, you are so young.” 

“ I am not at all young! In fact, I am very 


199 


Masquerading Mary 

old — much older than you are — almost 
twenty-five, and I wager you are not more than 
twenty-two.” 

“ You are right, but I am old in experience.” 

“Not at all or you would have known the 
old woman was lying. I know she was, al¬ 
though I don’t know what she said. That is 
how experienced I am.” 

Mary laughed. 

“ Perhaps when you hear all, you will agree 
with me. At any rate, after the illness of which 
I told you and while I was still convalescent, 
Percy found he must go up to London. There 
was an English princeling to be married and 
the Reserves called out for a parade. He left 
me with protestations of affection and regret. 
I was still very weak and I clung to him. How 
I loathe myself now for having wept at his de¬ 
parture. It seems the princeling got married 
without his assistance. He was excused by his 
colonel because of my illness. He was supposed 
to come post haste back to Ensley, but in truth 
he made a flying trip to Paris with his — his 
mistress. But I shouldn’t say such things to 
you, a young girl.” 

“ I am not a young girl and you need not 
mince matters with me, although I simply do 
not believe such an outrageous story.” 


200 Masquerading Mary 

“ Ah, I need not have felt so elated over your 
defense of me to Mr. Winston. You champion 
everyone,” declared Mary, her sensitive nostrils 
quivering. 

“ I champion everyone I think in the right. 
I knew nothing about you but that you were 
beautiful and sweet, and that goodness and no¬ 
bility shone from your face. I know nothing 
about Sir Percy but that he is a clean, fine look¬ 
ing young Englishman, and I do not believe he 
could be capable of such perfidy.” 

“ Yes,” agreed Mary wistfully, “ his appear¬ 
ance certainly belies his character.” 

“Another thing I know about him,” Peachey 
continued, “ and that is he is Price Winston’s 
friend.” 

“Oh, loyal little lover! But don’t you know 
that men excuse things in one another? Even 
your perfect Mr. Winston would no doubt wink 
at the peccadilloes of his friend. Percy would 
still be a bully good fellow to him, even though 
he had deceived his wife. But look at me! Men 
will remember longer the lies that have been 
told about me than the truth that can be told 
about my husband. No matter how white my 
soul may really be, I am as black as any Hot¬ 
tentot in the eyes of all the Price Winstons.” 

“ Oh no, you don’t know Price! ” 


201 


Masquerading Mary 

“Neither do you, little lover!’’ 

“ But, Lady Mary, how can you be so sure 
Sir Percy was not with his regiment? It may 
be a mistake.” 

Then Mary told of how Captain Hunting- 
ton had gone to Ensley at the invitation of the 
duchess and had expressed surprise at not find¬ 
ing Sir Percy Darcy there. He divulged that 
he had heard Colonel Travis mention the fact 
that he had been excused from taking part in 
the parade because of his wife’s illness. Then 
the mother-in-law had a change of heart and 
showed much tenderness for her son’s wife. 
Her whole manner showed pity for the girl and 
sorrow over something. Lady Mary found her 
weeping. Then the ugly story was finally re¬ 
vealed, little by little. 

“ It was an affair with a French woman — 
started during the war. Of course Percy was 
young. I could forgive his having had an 
affair in his youth. Many things went on dur¬ 
ing the war that must be forgiven and for¬ 
gotten. But for him to keep it up after we 
were engaged — after we were married! Oh, 
little American, could you forgive your Price if 
such things should happen?” 

“ Such things couldn’t happen,” declared 
Peachey with heightened color. “But if such 


202 Masquerading Mary 

a tale should be brought to me I’d give Price 
the benefit of the doubt and let him prove his 
innocence. Did you give Sir Percy that 
chance? ” 

“ I did not have to. His behavior, when he 
came back to Ensley, was convincing enough. 
He was morose and glum and pretended to be 
jealous at finding Captain Huntington there. 
Actually had the presumption to pretend he 
thought I was having an affair with Hunting- 
ton. Exactly like a man to try to excuse his 
own faults by finding similar ones in his wife.” 

“ Did he accuse you? ” 

“ Indeed he did not! He did not dare. His 
mother told me he had asked her if there was 
anything between Captain Huntington and me. 
Pah! It makes me ill when I think of the 
whole wretched business.” 

“ Why wasn’t Captain Huntington in Lon¬ 
don to help the prince get married? Was his 
regiment excused? ” 

“ Indeed I don’t know,” Lady Mary’s manner 
was a trifle haughty. “ I really took no interest 
in Captain Huntington’s affairs. His only 
virtue, in my eyes, was that he could act and 
had helped make the theatricals at Dorset a 
success.” 

“ Lady Mary, Lady Mary, the duchess can 


203 


Masquerading Mary 

act, too! I see it all! You have been duped 
by the dowager duchess and Captain Hunting- 
ton. It is as plain as day to me. You will see 
it in time. Did you reproach your husband?” 

“ Of course not! I have some pride.” 

. “ Ah, I thought as much. So has your 
mother-in-law. What did you do?” 

“ Since Percy pretended jealousy of Captain 
Huntington, I gave him every reason to be. I 
flirted outrageously with the creature for two 
days.” 

“ The duchess knew you would do that, too. 
A wise old woman! Has Huntington any 
money? ” 

“ Nothing but debts, so I have heard.” 

“ I fancy he has been enabled to pay some of 
those debts lately.” 

“ Miss Meade, what do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean that the gallant captain was in the 
employ of your husband’s mother and the whole 
tale w r as a fabrication from beginning to end. 
Very flimsy, too! They knew they were dealing 
with your impulsive Irish temperament and that 
you would do just what you have done, only 
they hardly banked on your disappearing as 
you did. But the old hag did not know her 
own son. She thought she had handed down to 
him some of her own greediness, and when you 


204 Masquerading Mary- 

fled— thereby forfeiting your share of Aunt 
Bella’s money — she thought he would console 
himself for your loss by taking unto himself the 
whole fortune. Instead of that he has scorned 
the fortune and is going to work for a living.” 

Mary laughed. 

“I can’t fancy poor Percy earning a living. 
Outside of soldiering, I wonder what he can 
do. If I have to be a nurse maid he will have 
to be a groom.” She tried to make her laugh 
sound gay, but Peachey was able to detect a 
note of extreme sadness in it. She was sorry 
for the English girl but could but feel that 
she deserved a good shaking. At any rate, she 
determined to give her a moral shaking at 
least. 

“ Now listen! ” she said, looking squarely into 
the eyes of Lady Mary. “ The fact of Sir 
Percy’s refusing to touch the money shows he is 
not mercenary and did not marry you for 
Aunt Bella’s sake. Point one, eh!” 

“ I grant you it was decent of him, but rather 
showy.” 

“No more showy than your leaving as you 
did! ” Peachey’s voice was stern. 

Mary tried to laugh but the laugh caught in 
her throat. She tried to look haughty but did 
not succeed. Why should she allow this little 


205 


Masquerading Mary 

American to sit in judgment on her? Why, 
indeed! But why did she pour forth her soul 
to this same American, telling her details of 
the last tragic months that she had thought she 
could never mention to anybody? Of course 
Lady Mary Darcy did not know that Peachey 
Meade never went anywhere on train, jitney 
or trolley, never strolled on the boulevard, 
bought a yard of ribbon or sat on a park bench, 
that some one did not tell the story of his or 
her life into her sympathetic ears. 

“ I never thought of its being showy, my leav¬ 
ing as I did,” faltered Mary. 

“No more did Sir Percy. To proceed with 
the defense: Why did the duchess choose the 
time when your husband was in London to 
ask Captain Huntington to Ensley? An axe 
to grind. Point two! Why did she choose 
him? Because Sir Percy had not enjoyed the 
necessary familiarities that occurred between his 
wife and the gallant captain in the play. I 
know this because Price Winston said he would 
not have liked it — and have you not just con¬ 
vinced me that all men are alike? Point three, 
eh? Why should a mother blacken her own 
son’s character? Even though the scandal were 
true; why should she tell it to you? She knew 
the terms of the will: the one who should give 


206 Masquerading Mary 

cause for divorce was to forfeit all claims to his 
or her share of the fortune. Point four!” 

“ I forgot all about the terms of the will. I 
was so infuriated,” said Lady Mary. 

“ Yes, and she knew you would forget it and 
she knew just how infuriated and outraged you 
would be. She knew also that you could have 
no proofs of her son’s infidelity, because there 
were none. Point five! But she determined 
that there should be every proof of — of — at 
least your imprudence. Point six!” 

“ Oh, oh, how you see things! A Daniel 
come to judgment! ” 

“ Not a Daniel; just a descendant of the great 
Chief Justice!” 

“Chief Justice who?” 

“Chief Justice Marshall!” 

“ Of course! I have read of him in my lesson 
book. But I must go. It is time I had my 
little charge home. Only fancy — I might lose 
my situation.” 

“ But Lady Mary, you have not yet promised 
me to think the matter over — ” 

“Think it over! I have done nothing but 
think it over for weeks and weeks. I have al¬ 
most gone crazy thinking it over. Now I have 
reached some kind of peace and security away 
from it all. My health is restored, I have a 


207 


Masquerading Mary- 

darling baby to love, my living is sure, I get 
plenty of excellent food and a gentleman’s 
library in which I may browse to my heart’s 
content. And now, suddenly, my world is 
turned topsy-turvy again. Percy coming to 
Richmond! At least I shall not have to see 
him.” 

“ But are you aware of the fact he is to dine 
at my brother’s house?” 

“Hardly! But you have forgotten. Miss 
Meade, that one of my virtues, according to my 
employers, is that I eat in the pantry.” 

Unconciously, Mary imitated Mrs. Meade’s 
telephone voice and manner. Peachey laughed, 
although she felt not at all so inclined. She 
was sure the moral shaking she had given the 
wayward lady had done no good. Her logical 
statements, delivered in the most approved 
“descendant of John Marshall” manner, had 
been wasted. Too long had the young wife al¬ 
lowed her mind and heart to be poisoned by the 
tales told by her mother-in-law. The girls 
walked side by side to the exit of the park, 
Mary wheeling the perambulator. At last Mary 
spoke: 

“ Miss Meade, I can trust you not to divulge 
my identity to your sister-in-law. It is quite 
necessary for me to hold this place until some 


208 Masquerading Mary 

Irish rents fall due. That will be another month 

yet.” 

“ Oh, Lady Mary, of course you can trust me. 
I only want to help you and now you are angry 
with me.” 

“ My dear, I am not in the least angry. You 
are kindness itself. Too kind to Darcy. Too 
long have I thought of him as lying to me. It 
will take stronger proof than inherited logic to 
convince me that I am mistaken. I shall have 
to be shown. As you say in the States, ‘ I am 
from Missouri.’ ” 

“ But Lady Mary, please think over what I 
have said,” begged Peachey. 

“ Indade, mum, an’ I have no time to be 
after thinkin’ inny more. I’m after goin’ to the 
movies wid Moike on me afternoon out. A poor 
gurl nades some ricreation — she does that! ” 

With which parting sally, in the broadest of 
Irish brogues, Lady Mary Darcy turned and 
wheeled the baby slowly out Franklin Street. 


CHAPTER XIX 


Why should Percy be coming to Richmond? 
Could it be possible that he had tracked her? 
Was her hard won peace to be disturbed — 
peace of mind and body? Peace of mind was 
already gone. The words of the little American 
had had their effect. No longer could she rest 
secure in her grievance. How she had hugged 
to her bosom the righteous indignation of one 
sinned against! How she had gloried in run¬ 
ning away! Was running away ever praise¬ 
worthy? She realized as never before that she 
was nothing but a foolish, inexperienced girl. 

“ Cowardly, too! ” she exclaimed. “ Not that 
I believe for an instant that Percy is faithful 
to me — but I was a timid fool not to face it.” 
Then she realized she was talking to herself as 
she wheeled the baby across Stuart Circle, and 
that passers-by were looking at her curiously. 

Suppose she should meet her husband on the 
street. What should she do? He must not 
recognize her. The ignominy would be more 
than she could bear. He need never know she 
209 


210 Masquerading Mary 

was in Richmond. She could trust Peachey 
Meade. She felt sure of the girl. She de¬ 
termined to wear a thick veil until Percy was 
well on his way. 

Richmond was a city only in regard to size 
and inhabitants. It was a village in that per¬ 
sons who knew one another were constantly 
meeting. Witness Miss Effie Sharpe Burton, 
Mary’s friend and sponsor, at that moment 
speeding down Monument Avenue. At a cross¬ 
street a plump hand waving from the window 
of a yellow taxicab made Mary look up in 
time to catch a glimpse of that comfortable 
looking person. 

“ Just home from Washington!” she called. 
“ See you soon! ” 

“No doubt on the same train with Percy!” 
thought Mary. “ I wonder if she made friends 
with him and shared her lunch and if he went 
to sleep on her shoulder.” 

She regretted not having taken a position as 
shop girl under Miss Effie’s motherly wing. At 
least in the shop she need never have been dis¬ 
covered by Peachey Meade and would have run 
much less risk of being seen by the recalcitrant 
husband. Percy loathed all shops and she could 
have been safely hidden from him behind the 
counter. Of course had she not been employed 


211 


Masquerading Mary 

by Mrs. Meade she would never have known the 
delight of caring for a baby. It was a delight. 
The clasp of his little hands thrilled her to the 
soul and the responsive kick and crow that 
always greeted her approach was as balm to her 
wounded heart. 

Aunt Maria was cross. The moment one en¬ 
tered the domicile of the Henry Meade’s one 
was conscious of it. There were many signs 
of stormy weather. Blanche’s cap was awry 
and one wrapped pigtail had slipped its moor¬ 
ings and stuck straight up like a warning finger. 
Uncle Cy crept around quietly, his kind old 
face pained and furrowed. In the kitchen a 
furious rattling of pots and pans could be heard 
and the ominous rumblings of “No hidin’ place 
down here.” Aunt Maria was cross because it 
had been decreed that since it was Miss Mary’s 
afternoon out Aunt Maria was to mind the 
baby — Blanche not being trustworthy, and the 
mistress being booked for a card party. 

“ ’Tain’t that I mind nussin’,” grumbled the 
old woman between the stanzas of No Hidin’ 
Place, “but when I nusses I nusses an’ when 
I cooks I cooks. Supper party on han’ fer this 
ebenin’ an’ all kinds er orders fer chickin’ fixin’s 
an’ what not an’ me a dandlin’ the baby when 
I ought ter be plannin’ out my victuals. If 


212 Masquerading Mary 

Miss ’Ginia wants ter entertain what she calls 
the noblebility wher fo’ she don’t let up on 
cyards fer a day? Cy ain’t a feelin’ any too 
peart, besides.” 

“ Aunt Maria, I’ll not take an afternoon off,” 
said Mary, smiling at the irate old woman. “ I 
really do not need to go out and I can stay 
and take care of the precious baby.” 

“ There you are! Lawd love you chil’, I 
ain’t a meanin’ you mustn’t git off. You’s 
already tied down too much fer a little gal — 
no fun — no high jinks — nothin’ but nussin’ 
day in an’ day out. It’s jes’ the madam I’m 
wantin’ ter stay in. Needn’t tell me ’bout Miss 
’Ginia. She’s all time ’rangin’ other folkses 
business so’s they don’t git off. Looks lak it 
kinder hurts her when the he’p has a holiday. 
One time it’s Cy. He mustn’t git off kase 
she’s gonter have special comp’ny an’ he’s sich 
a stylish butler an’ so on an’ Blanche can’t 
wait on the table. An’ then my day comes an’ 
I mustn’t git off kase Mr. Hinery done sent 
home some wil’ ducks an’ he’d be so disap¬ 
pointed if I didn’t cook ’em. Even Blanche 
must stay in, though Gawd knows what she kin 
do wdien she stays, but Mis ’Ginia fins a ’scuse. 
She ’cides on Blanche’s day out that it’s a 
good time ter train her, or the attic can’t wait 


213 


Masquerading Mary 

another day ter git scrubbed, or the cellar win¬ 
ders need washin’ or somethin’. They do say 
that one er Miss ’Ginia’s fo’bears was a over¬ 
seer an’ I mus’ say she done took after her great 
gran’ pappy. No, chil’, you go on an’ make 
out ter enjy yo’self some. I’m jes’ a grumblin’ 
fer grumblin’s sake. I reckon me’n Blanche 
kin make out ter keep the baby chil’ fer a few 
hours. I won’t let either one er them out’n my 
sight.” 

So Lady Mary Darcy went to the movies with 
Mike. First the mistress must be driven to the 
card party, strict orders being given that he 
should call for her no later than ten minutes of 
six. Then Mike ran his car in the garage for 
a moment while he made a rapid change in 
clothing, converting himself from a stylishly 
garbed chauffeur into a rather flashily dressed 
young man out for a holiday with a lady friend. 
When the lady friend appeared with her pretty 
face covered up with a blue veil, Mike was 
disappointed. He had been experiencing de¬ 
lightful thrills ever since the nursery governess 
had consented to go to the movies with him, 
thinking of the picture he would present to the 
other and less fortunate chauffeurs as he drove 
down Monument Avenue, by his side the very 
prettiest girl in all the world. 


214 Masquerading Mary 

“ The hot sun of the morning has burned 
my face and I must begin wearing a veil,” 
Mary said in explanation. 

Whatever she said or did was adorable in 
Mike’s eyes. The veil w r as not very thick and 
he could see her delicate profile and how her 
lashes touched the blue gauze because of the 
great length of them. Perhaps the other chauf¬ 
feurs would envy him more because they could 
not see who was behind the veil. The poise 
of her head in the soft little grey hat, and the 
gallant carriage of her shoulders that so set 
off the grey suit of unmistakable English tailor¬ 
ing, were alluring enough. There was no doubt 
that he was envied. 

It was a proud Mike who bought tickets for 
two, paying extra for a box in the center. 

“ We won’t be crowded in the box seats,” he 
explained, “ and you can eat your candy in 
peace,” and Mike produced a box of chocolates. 

A comedy was on the screen. Mary laughed 
happily. She was glad she had come with Mike. 
Maybe she could forget her troubles for a little 
while. It was pleasant to have someone look¬ 
ing after her so kindly. She removed her veil 
and, like a school girl, bit into a luscious choco¬ 
late. She laughed again as the comedian slid 
down a coal chute. 


215 


Masquerading Mary 

“ You are easy to please, Miss. This ain’t 
much of a picture. Some night we’ll have 
to take in a vardvil. You’d like that, 
wouldn’t ye?” 

“ Immensely! ” 

“ Do you know, Miss, somehow you don’t 
seem English to me. It’s your laugh. English 
nurse maids don’t know how to laugh. They 
either tee-hee or haw-haw. Now there’s a ring 
to your laugh that reminds me of home.” 

“ Home?” 

“Yes, home! In my country they laugh be¬ 
cause they love to laugh, and sometimes they 
laugh to keep from crying—” 

“Crying?” 

“ Yes, I have seen my Mither, God rest her 
soul, laugh when the rain was coming through 
the hole in the thatch, wetting the bed so we 
had to sit by the peat fire all night with no 
place to sleep.” 

“ Well, that was funny,” laughed Mary with 
a little catch in her voice. 

“ And I’ve seen her cover her face and burst 
out crying to keep from laughing when old Tim 
Creel got drunk at his mother-in-law’s funeral 
and fell in the open grave.” 

“ Tim Creel, the old rip! ” cried Mary, wip¬ 
ing the tears from her eyes. 


216 Masquerading Mary 

“ In Donegal — ” Mike began another rem- 
iniscent narration. 

“Donegal, Mike?” 

“ Sure and where did ye think I was from? ” 

“Mike, Mike, so am I!” 

“ I knew it! Oh, Miss Mary! ” 

“ But please, Mike, don’t be after telling the 
mistress. She is setting so much store on hav¬ 
ing an English governess and I might be after 
losing my place if she hears I come from 
Donegal.” 

“ Sure and mum’s the word.” 

“ My father was English but my mother was 
all Irish. To be sure I was born in England, 
but I was very small and could not help it.” 

“ Of course not,” declared Mike of the un¬ 
derstanding heart. 

“ My mother and I lived a great deal of the 
time in Ireland. I do love Ireland! What is 
your whole name, Mike?” 

“Michael McManus, Miss!” 

“ McManus,” Mary’s voice shook and she put 
a hand on Mike’s arm. “ And was your 
mother’s name Kathleen? ” 

“Yes, Miss!” 

“ And was she once lady’s maid for Miss 
Diana Rowney of Redlands, who married Lord 
Dale?” 


217 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Yes, Miss, that she was, and fine people 
they were.” 

“Michael, Michael, don’t you know me? 
Can’t you remember a naughty little girl who 
would sometimes spend the day in your moth¬ 
er’s cottage and would order you about so 
much, and always demanded the largest and 
mealiest praties for herself and would lead you 
on to pull the curly tails of the little pigs to 
make them squeal for her amusement ’til Kath¬ 
leen came and boxed your ears?” 

The comedian had emerged from under a ton 
of coal that had followed him down the chute, 
and all unconscious of his blackened face had 
appeared at his own wedding after many and 
various vicissitudes in the way of bulldogs and 
irate rivals. The audience rocked with laughter, 
but Michael McManus and his lady friend might 
have been back in Donegal for all the attention 
they gave the screen. 

When the truth of his companion’s identity 
burst upon Mike, he sprang from his seat and 
pulled his forelock. 

“Oh, little Lady Mary! What does it all 
mean? Why are you here in Richmond work¬ 
ing for your living — you the daughter of Miss 
Di Rowney and a noble lord ? ” 

“ Not allowed to stand up during the show,” 


218 Masquerading Mary 

said an usher sternly. “ Sit down! Sit down! 
Can’t you see you are disturbing the others?” 

“ Sit down, Michael! We can talk after¬ 
wards,” whispered Mary. 

“ Let’s get out of this now,” suggested Mike. 

“ Wait, I must compose myself. See, it is 
a news reel and I like them.” 

“ Not much news, that foreign stuff. It is 
months old lots of times, but if you like it, all 
well and good.” 

London streets — the marriage of an English 
prince — notables riding in automobiles — 
crowds of adoring subjects out to catch a 
glimpse of royalty — soldiers and more soldiers. 
Some on foot, some on horses. Mary held her 
breath. She was back in London for the mo¬ 
ment. She recognized various notables as the 
reel ran on, whispering their names to Mike. 
Suddenly she sat up very straight and clutched 
Mike’s arm. A crack regiment was marching 
into the camera. 

“Look! There’s Colonel Travis. Isn’t he 
soldierly! But Mike, look — see that man com¬ 
ing towards us on the left? That tall one — 
the handsomest of them all — that one — that 
one! Oh, Michael, that is my husband, Sir 
Percy Darcy! ” 

“ Your husband? ” 


219 


Masquerading Mary 

“Yes, Yes! I must speak to him!” Mary 
sprang to her feet. 

“Sit down, you in front!” hissed a dis¬ 
gruntled person behind. 

Mary sank back in her seat. 

“ Gone! Gone! I couldn’t catch his eye. He 
was in London with his regiment — and I be¬ 
lieved those fiends! Oh, Michael, take me out. 
I must have air.” 


CHAPTER XX 


Mike, like a model chauffeur, opened the door 
of the closed car and touching his hat, stood 
waiting for Lady Mary to enter. 

“Why, Michael, I’m not going to sit back 
there all by myself.” 

“ It’s not fitting for the likes of you to be 
driving around on the front seat with a com¬ 
mon boy like me.” 

“ Absurd! I’m the same poor girl you were 
kind enough to want to give a little pleasure. 
The only difference is you are no longer a 
stranger, but the son of my mother’s old friend 
and my one time companion. Oh, Michael, 
please don’t treat me like anything but the 
little girl who used to make you pull the pigs’ 
curly tails.” 

“Just as you say, Lady Mary!” 

“ Not that either, please, Michael. You might 
call me Masquerading Mary but not Lady 
Mary. I couldn’t hold my job a minute if Mrs. 
Meade found out about me. I must hold my 
job, you see.” 


220 


221 


Masquerading Mary 

Mary settled herself on the front seat with 
Mike and that worthy looked thoroughly em¬ 
barrassed and uncomfortable. No longer was 
he the gay, debonnaire youth out for a holiday 
with his lady friend. He sat uncompromisingly 
stiff, skillfully manipulating his wheel, his 
countenance as wooden as he could make it 
while hot surges of color suffused his neck and 
face. 

“Home, Miss?” he asked as, escaping the 
crowded down-town traffic, he turned his car 
into West Franklin. 

“ Oh, please Mike, could we take a little spin 
in the country? After all, it is my afternoon 
off and if I go home I shall just have to take 
up my duties. Would it be wrong for you to 
take me for a little ride? I mean, would it get 
you in trouble with Mrs. Meade to have her 
car out?” 

“ I’m not caring about Mrs. Meade,” said 
Mike bitterly. “ I’m only after thinking about 
you. I can’t make it out.” 

And for the second time that day Lady Mary 
Darcy told her story. Mike was all attention. 
He guided the car slowly and carefully along 
a pleasant country road, never missing a word 
that fell from the lips of Mary, his Lady Mary. 
Gradually the stiffness of his manner gave way 


222 Masquerading Mary 

to the natural Irish of the boy. He even be¬ 
gan to ask an occasional question. She told 
him of her reason for falling so naturally into 
the role of nurse maid because of the costume 
being in her trunk. 

“ And your name — why did you call your¬ 
self Hill?” 

“ Easy enough. You see my maiden name 
was Dale and it came to me that it would be 
easy to remember who I was if I thought of 
‘ Up Hill and down Dale.’ I made up the 
name on the spur of the moment. It would 
have been sad if I had called myself a name that 
I could never remember. But Michael, the 
exciting part is yet to come. My husband, Sir 
Percy Darcy, is in Richmond this very minute 
and will dine with Mr. and Mrs. Meade this 
very evening. I could not bear to have him 
see me. I know he hates me and never wants 
to see me again. He may think the worst of 
me. I may manage to peep at him, but he must 
never know that I am in the house, or even the 
city. If he believes those things that are in 
the newspaper, I cannot blame him. Did I not 
believe terrible things of him until this very 
afternoon when I saw him marching with his 
regiment? Oh, Michael, life is an awfully mixed 
tip affair. Don’t ever get married, Michael.” 


223 


Masquerading Mary 

“ No, Miss, I’m thinking not. I might draw 
a mother-in-law like the old Do-wagger you 
got.” 

“ Do-wagger! ” laughed Mary. “ I shall have 
to go back to England someday just to call her 
that.” 

Mike was late going for the mistress, not 
very late, but being late at all was one of the 
many things for which Mrs. Meade would not 
stand. It was especially irritating on this oc¬ 
casion because of the important guest expected 
for dinner. The chauffeur offered no explana¬ 
tion or excuse for his delay. “ Sorry, Mrs. 
Meade,” was all he vouchsafed. 

“ Sorry indeed, when every minute counts, 
and here you have kept me waiting at least 
half an hour.” 

Since it was at most only five minutes after 
the time set by the mistress for his calling for 
her, Mike deigned no reply, feeling sure that 
Mrs. Meade was quite aware of the fact but 
no doubt would insist upon the half hour and 
there was no use in arguing with her. There 
was something about the expression in the 
chauffeur’s eyes that reminded Mrs. Meade 
vaguely of her husband — also a certain mannish 
carriage of the head and set of the shoulder. 
No two persons could be more unlike than 


224 Masquerading Mary 

Henry Marshall Meade III and Michael 
McManus, so the subtle likeness must have 
arisen from a kindred thing that Virginia Meade 
fancied was that hated quality of humor. It' 
was bad enough to have ones husband laughing 
up his sleeve at one, but it was simply unbear¬ 
able for an Irish chauffeur to presume in like 
manner. 

Blanche opened the door at the impatient 
ring of the mistress. The moment she entered 
the house she sensed discord. The baby was 
crying fretfully and Aunt Maria was rumbling 
her favorite trouble motif: “No hidin’ place 
down here.” All the doors were open straight 
back from the front hall, through the dining 
room and butler’s pantry to kitchen, so that 
singing and crying — as well as cooking — 
permeated the entire house. Blanche’s cap was 
still on crooked and her apron was on hind-part- 
before. 

“What does this mean? Put your cap on 
straight! Why do you wear your apron that 
way? ” Mrs. Meade’s voice could have etched 
glass. 

“ I done forgot to pull it ’roun’,” giggled 
Blanche. “ I wears it back fo’most ter keep it 
clean.” 

“ What is the matter with the baby? ” 


225 


Masquerading Mary 

“Aunt Maria says he’s cuttin’ a tooth but it 
looks ter me mo’ lak a tooth air a cuttin’ him. 
He been frettin’ right smart all evenin’.” 

“And where is Miss Mary? Surely she is 
not going to take the whole day off.” 

“ Miss Mary done jes’ this minute come in. 
She been ridin’ in the country with Mr. Mike. 
Fust she w r ent to the movies — leastways I 
reckon she did. I ain’t hearn tell whether she’s 
gonter give up her time off or not. Aunt Maria 
done said nigger nusses gits all the even’ an’ 
nights off oncet a week an’ she reckon Miss 
Mary needs a change as much as nigger nusses.” 

“ Well, shut the doors leading into the back 
of the house and be quick about it. I wish I 
knew how many times I have told the servants 
in my house to keep those doors shut. Where 
is Uncle Cy? I do hope he has got the table 
properly set.” 

“ Lawsamussy, Miss ’Ginia, I pretty nigh 
forgot to tell you ’bout Uncle Cy. He done 
gone home with the miz’ry.” 

“ The what? You don’t mean Cy has de¬ 
serted me at this critical time?” 

“Yassum, he done doubled up like a wooly 
worm an’ gone off to put a mustard plarster on 
his stummick. He sent what respects he could 
make out to ’spress betwixt groans. I done sot 


226 Masquerading Mary 

the table though — and I sho’ have sot it in 
style.” 

Poor Mrs. Meade! Life held many problems. 
She pushed the well meaning Blanche aside and 
hurried to the dining room. Blanche had set 
the table and set it in style. A memorable trip 
on a steamboat had established an ideal for the 
girl. This was her first opportunity in which 
she could express herself and she had eagerly 
grasped it. The table was laden with silver and 
glass, the knives and forks stacked like guns, 
with spoons nicely balanced across each tepee. 
The napkins were stuck in the goblets, nicely 
folded to simulate calla lilies. The centerpiece 
was a fearsome combination of red geraniums- 
and purple flags. 

“My God!” cried Mrs. Meade, with no 
thought of sacrilege. “ What am I to do? ” 

“ Don’t you like what I done? ” asked Blanche 
wistfully. 

“Like it!! You — you — never mind what 
— go call Miss Mary to me this minute. Tell 
Aunt Maria to please change her tune unless 
she can keep the kitchen door shut, and you go 
take the baby and try to keep him quiet a 
minute.” 

Mary came quickly. Her eyes were red with 
weeping. She had no intention of demanding 


227 


Masquerading Mary 

the whole evening off, but she had felt that a 
few moments of quiet in her room were neces¬ 
sary before she could resume her duties. She, 
too, had heard the baby crying, but for the mo¬ 
ment her own troubles were on top. 

“Miss Mary, can you set a table?” 

“ Certainly, Mrs. Meade, I think I can. 
Where is Uncle Cy.” 

“Gone home pretending he is sick. I don’t 
see how he could treat me this way.” 

“ The poor old man! I thought this morning 
he looked quite ill.” Then Mary caught sight 
of the table and before she could remember to 
restrain herself her laughter rang out. 

“ I see nothing to laugh about,” said Mrs. 
Meade, with extreme dignity. 

“ Perhaps not, but let me attend to this, Mrs. 
Meade. At least I know how it should be. You 
had better dress and then you can see if I have 
done it properly.” 

The mistress, somewhat relieved, hurried off. 
With deft touches Mary restored order to the 
demoralized table. She removed the geraniums 
from the purple fleur de lys and the napkins 
from the goblets and placed the silver in neat 
rows, quite after the manner of the incompar¬ 
able Cy. It was finished before the hostess was 
dressed. Mary then hurried off to resume the 


228 Masquerading Mary 

care of the fretful baby. It was a tooth, com¬ 
bined with the handling given the little fellow, 
first by Aunt Maria and then by Blanche. He 
had tried desperately to go to sleep, but had 
been kept awake by too much attention. Had 
he been able to join in the chorus, no doubt he 
would have joyously and understanding^ helped 
Aunt Maria with her “ No hidin’ place down 
here.” With a pitiful sob he snuggled his face 
down in Mary’s neck and his crying ceased. 
He was fast asleep almost before she could un¬ 
dress him and put him in his cradle. 

Mrs. Meade was dressed, except the fasten¬ 
ing of some refractory hooks that she could not 
reach. She hurried down to the dining room 
to view and approve Mary’s handiwork. The 
baby’s wails had ceased and Aunt Maria had 
either given up trying to find a hiding place or 
had decided that the waffle batter needed all 
her attention. The doors were shut and the 
house had resumed its wonted quiet and dig¬ 
nity. Blanche poked a grinning head into the 
dining room. 

“ Miss ’Ginia, Uncle Cy say he thinks I 
mought make out ter han’ the victuals fer oncet, 
bein’ as ’tain’t a co’se dinner.” 

“ Cyrus must be delirious,” responded Mrs. 
Meade. “ Have you ever waited on a table? ” 


229 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Yessum, I’s been a great han’ fer helpin’ 
at the barbecues down in ’Melia County an’ I’s 
dished out gallons er Brunswick stew at barskit 
funerals. Uncle Cy he says I look lak a cham- 
pinzee tryin’ ter serve, but Aunt Maria says 
she’ll see to it that the eatin’s is good enough 
fer the folks to ’scuse the way they is handed.” 

“Well, that is sl comfort! But tell me, do 
you know which side to serve on?” 

“ Whichever side you is standin’ on, I reckon. 
I don’t think it would be very politeful ter rech 
across folks.” 

“Do you know which is your right hand?” 

“ I don’t believe I got airy right han’. Folks 
a been tellin’ me all my life that I got two lef’ 
han’s.” 

“ Do you know which is my right hand? ” 

“ No’m, but cyan’t you tell yo’se’f by which 
one you jes’ natchelly does things with?” 

“ Of course I know, you idiot, but you must 
know, too, so you can pass things to my left.” 

“Yo’ lef’! Whatfer you talkin’ ’bout yo’ 
hight han’ when you want me ter know ’bout 
yo’ lef’? I ain’t never said I didn’t know ’bout 
yo’ lef’. I knows that well enough by the 
di’mon’ buckle on yo’ lef’ shoulder. I’s havin’ 
a dress made jes’ lak you’s cept’n fer the buckle. 
Yo’s is on the lef but mine’s a gonter be on the 


230 Masquerading Mary 

right ’kase Miss Mary done tole me it’s all the 
style in Lunnon ter have the trimmin’ on the 
right.” 

Mrs. Meade looked ruefully at the buckle of 
brilliants that caught the drapery of her gown 
on the left shoulder. She picked at it tenta¬ 
tively, wondering vaguely if Sir Percy Darcy 
would notice w T hich shoulder carried the orna¬ 
mentation. At this juncture Mr. Meade let 
himself in with his latchkey and his wife called 
excitedly to him from the dining room, 


CHAPTER XXI 


“ You’re looking mighty pretty, honey,” said 
the husband, kissing his wife fondly. “ How 
comes along the dinner to royalty? ” 

“ Oh, Henry, I am in so much trouble! Mike 
was disgracefully late coming for me at the card 
part5 r . I only this minute got home. You must 
speak to him about it. It is almost time for Sir 
Percy to arrive. Uncle Cy has gone home dou¬ 
bled up with cramps. I can’t even get my dress 
hooked up — and the most stylish butler on 
Monument Avenue, too,” and Virginia wept a 
few wifely tears on her husband’s shoulder. 

“Poor old Cy! Maybe there was method in 
his madness. Can’t your housegirl do it, or 
even Miss Mary? ” 

Drying her eyes, Virginia looked up. 

“ Oh Henry, do you think I might ask her? ” 
“Who, Blanche? I think you might, but 
why don’t you let me do it? ” 

^ You! Wait on the table?” 

“ I thought you were talking about hooking 
up your dress.” 


231 


232 Masquerading Mary 

“ Henry Marshall Meade, you shall not joke 
at a time like this.” 

“ I’m not joking, and to show you I’m not, 
I’ll hook you up.” He turned her around and 
with practiced hand brought hook to eye with 
business-like precision. 

“ But, Henry, do you really think I might 
ask Miss Mary to serve dinner this evening? 
You suggested it.” 

“Why, Virginia Wilson Meade! You know 
I did nothing of the kind. How could you ask 
a veritable lady to wait on the table? But here 
is Peachey,” he announced in a relieved tone. 
“ Come on, sister, and get in on this family 
conclave.” 

“ I came early so I could see the baby before 
he goes to sleep,” said Peachey. “ It is so kind 
of you to ask me, Virginia. I ran away without 
waiting to see Cousin Elizabeth to tell her I 
was dining out. I left a message with Mrs. 
Leander Peake, however.” 

“ It must be a relief to get away from Cousin 
Elizabeth for a meal,” laughed Henry. “ Poor 
old Cousin Elizabeth. You should have asked 
her, Virginia.” 

“ What! To meet Sir Percy Darcy! Heavens 
above, Henry, I have your cousin to luncheon 
occasionally but I’d hardly ask her to dine with 


233 


Masquerading Mary 

such a person as Sir Percy. No, indeed! I 
asked Mrs. Johnston, but she couldn’t come so I 
asked Mrs. Tucker Byrd to make the sixth. 
She is handsome and spirited and styilsh and 
will make a good impression on a nobleman. 
But, Peachey, I am in great trouble.’’ 

“ Oh, Virginia, I am so sorry. Nothing ser¬ 
ious, I hope.” 

“ Serious indeed! Uncle Cyrus is too sick 
to serve dinner.” 

“Poor old Uncle Cy! I do hope he is not 
very ill. It is too bad. The poor old fellow!” 

“ Oh, he’ll be all right. It is not having any¬ 
one to wait on the table that is worrying me.” 

“ Where is the housegirl you have been train¬ 
ing all winter? ” 

“ That orang-outang! I have already wasted 
a half hour trying to teach her which is the left 
side.” 

“Oh!” teased her husband, “I understood 
you had only been home five minutes.” Vir¬ 
ginia withered him with a glance. She scorned 
Peachey’s proposal that Aunt Maria should let 
Blanche cook the waffles while she waited on 
the table, calling her a fat old thing with no 
style whatsoever. 

“ Your brother has suggested to me, Peachey, 
that I ask the nursery governess, Miss Mary, 


234 Masquerading Mary 

to wait on the table. I think it a good sugges¬ 
tion, don’t you? ” 

Peachey clapped her hand over her mouth 
to keep back the “ Lady Mary!” that almost 
came out. Henry insisted that he had not sug¬ 
gested the governess at all, that Virginia had 
misunderstood him, but Virginia’s eyes had 
taken on the expression she had no doubt in¬ 
herited from the overseer ancestor, that one of 
“ you do if you don’t want to die.” 

“ I don’t want to argue with you, Henry, it 
may have been an unconscious suggestion but 
it was your suggestion. Miss Mary is not so 
much of a lady after all. I have been very 
much mistaken in her. I have not been able to 
place her exactly until now, but I am sure she 
belongs to the lower middle class and no doubt 
is quite accustomed to waiting at table.” 

Henry and Peachey looked at one another. 
Peachey almost decided that she should break 
faith with Lady Mary Darcy and divulge to 
her brother that it was impossible for the wife 
of the guest of honor to serve the dinner, but 
the humor of the situation appealed to her and 
a promise was a promise and Peachey Meade 
had never been known to break one. 

“ I don’t see how you can say La — Miss 
Mary is not a lady, Virginia. I saw her in the 


235 


Masquerading Mary 

park this morning with my little nephew and 
she seems to me to be what one might call an 
‘ exquisite lady \” 

“ Hardly, when she spent the afternoon with 
Mike at the movies and afterwards driving in 
the country with him. For my part, I think 
she is hardly a nice person to go out with a 
common Irishman like Mike.” 

“ An uncommon Irishman I call Mike,” 
laughed Mr. Meade, “ with uncommonly good 
taste. I don’t know why Miss Mary went with 
him, but she could go with the scum of the 
earth — which Mike isn’t — and still be a lady. 
Let me telephone to the club for one of the 
waiters to come help us out, my dear.” 

44 1 prefer your first suggestion. Blanche, 
ask Miss Mary to come here a minute,” she 
commanded, espying a listening ear at the crack 
of the door. 44 Oh, I forgot something. Please 
excuse me, Peachey, I must telephone the society 
editress of the morning paper. I promised the 
poor girl I’d give her any news that came up. 
She has a hard time this time of the year filling 
her column, with all the parties over and done 
with and nobody getting married in May be¬ 
cause it is such bad luck.” 

Brother and sister looked at each other again. 
Had Virginia caught the glance she would have 


236 


Masquerading Mary 

been irritated indeed, for the expression was 
not exactly one of humor. 

“ Miss Davis,” she called into the receiver, 
“ this is Mrs. Henry Marshall Meade the Third. 
Yes, I remember I promised to give you any 
news that should come to my knowledge. Well, 
this evening I am entertaining at dinner. My 
guests are Mrs. Tucker Byrd, Miss Peachey 
Meade, Mr. Price Winston, lately of London 
— attache at the Court of St. James you know — 
and Sir Percy Darcy. Yes, Sir Percy! Younger 
brother of the Duke of Trice. I believe he is 
Honorable Sir Percy, but I am not sure. Of 
course I am too democratic to think much about 
foreign titles. What’s that you say? No, I 
have not read the morning paper, at least noth¬ 
ing but the society column. Oh, I am sure it 
cannot be the same man. A divorce scandal! 
Please, Miss Davis, don’t publish anything in 
connection with Sir Percy until you hear from 
me.” 

Mary entered the room as Mrs. Meade hung 
up the receiver. Peachey could hardly resist the 
temptation to take the English girl in her arms. 
There was no doubt that she had been weeping. 
Her eyes were red but at the same time her ex¬ 
pression was in a measure exalted. The bitter¬ 
ness, that had at times crept into her face during 


237 


Masquerading Mary 

the interview in the park, was gone. She looked 
like a tired child who had been naughty but who 
was “ all whipped and good again.” The girls’ 
eyes met. Peachey’s signalled sympathy and 
understanding. Mary’s answered trust and con¬ 
fidence. 

“ What’s Percy been doing? ” asked Mr. 
Meade as his wife turned from the telephone. 

“Nothing himself! It’s his wife who is to 
blame, I am sure,” declared the woman. “ Miss 
Davis says there is an account in the morning 
paper of a disgraceful divorce mix-up that Sir 
Percy Darcy is involved in. I am sure it is 
his wife. Anyhow, he is still brother to the 
Duke of Trice. Ah, Miss Mary, will you please 
find the morning paper for me and then I wish 
to ask a favor of you.” 

Mary’s expression was a bit quizzical as she 
hurried away to execute the mistress’s orders. 
She very well knew that the morning paper 
was in her room, much crumpled and with a 
few wet blotches on the foreign news. 

Virginia must bustle her husband off to change 
for dinner. She followed him to make sure he 
made no mistake in regard to the proper tie. 
Peachey was alone when Mary came back with 
the paper, still struggling to smooth out the 
creases and wrinkles. 


238 Masquerading Mary 

“ My dear little friend, I am so glad to see 
you alone for a moment! You can never guess 
what happened to me this afternoon! I saw 
Percy at the cinema — he was marching with 
his regiment in London. It was the wedding 
of the prince.” 

“Wonderful! And now you will let him 
know you are in Richmond. You will even let 
him see you this evening. Absolve me from 
my promise and permit me to tell my brother 
who you are. Won’t you please, Lady Mary?” 

“ I can’t tell yet, I am so overwrought and 
have had no time to think. If I only knew how 
he felt towards me. He may believe the things 
that old — old thing has told about me. That 
will be hard to forgive.” 

“ How about what you believed about him? ” 

“ Ah, still the Daniel come to judgment! But 
listen; another wonderful thing has happened 
to me. It turns out that Mike and I were play¬ 
mates in Donegal. His mother, Kathleen Mc¬ 
Manus, was my mother’s maid.” 

“ At the risk of being put down as bromidic, 
I must say 4 how small the world is.’ ” 

“ Small or not, bromidic or not, I must say it 
is a very beautiful world. But tell me, little 
American, how am I to see Percy without his 
seeing me? I am sure I would know at a glance 


Masquerading Mary 239 

whether he is missing me or not and if he wants 
me back.” 

“ I imagine my resourceful sister-in-law will 
arrange that for you. She has a proposition 
to make to you that no doubt will astonish you 
somewhat. Don’t do what she wants, I beg of 
you. Here she comes! ” 

“Ah, thank you. Miss Mary,” said Mrs. 
Meade, taking the paper. “ How rumpled it is! 
I fancy someone else has been interested in the 
same item, as it is all read up. I’ll look over it 
later. Er — Miss Mary, have you ever — er — 
er—waited at table?” 

“ Yes, madam, for hours at a time.” Peachey 
tried not to giggle. 

“ Ah, at restaurants, perhaps ? ” 

“ Yes, madam, occasionally, but oftener at 
long, heavy English dinners which one takes 
hours to consume.” 

“ I am very glad you have had some exper¬ 
ience. You see, I’m in quite a predicament. My 
butler, Cyrus, is ill and cannot serve dinner. 
Perhaps you know I am to have an English 
nobleman here.” 

“Yes, madam!” 

“Blanche is out of the question. You must 
see that.” 

“ Yes, madam, she might spill the soup.” 


240 Masquerading Mary 

“We are not going to have soup. Of course 
I know soup should always be served at formal 
dinners, but Mr. Winston has requested me to 
have a typical Virginia supper. It seems he 
has spoken of these suppers to Sir Percy and 
his wife Lady Mary.” 

“Yes, I remember — er — er, yes, madam.” 

Peachey came to the rescue with an assur¬ 
ance that Price Winston knew well where to 
bring the Englishman for the very best food in 
Richmond. Virginia, flattered by the praise, lost 
sight of Miss Mary’s confusion. 

“ And now I am going to ask you to help 
me out of my predicament by waiting on the 
table, Miss Mary.” 

“ Certainly, madam, I shall do my best for 
you. I may be awkward, as my only experience 
has been at English dinners.” 

Peachey gasped her amazement. She had 
expected Lady Mary to refuse point blank and 
here she was calmly deciding to wait on the 
table where her own husband was the guest of 
honor. She was lost in admiration at the per¬ 
fect piece of acting. Lady Mary had assumed 
the manner and voice of an English servant. 

“ You must not be nervous,” said Mrs. Meade 
in a relieved tone. “ I am sure you will do 
quite nicely.” 


241 


Masquerading Mary 

“ I can but do my best,” declared Mary 
smugly. “The only fear I have is that my tooth 
that is already giving me trouble may cause my 
jaw to swell. It often does this way and now 
it has begun it may be quite bad in a short 
while.” 

The girl turned her cheek for the mistress to 
see a puffiness that had developed miraculously 
in the last few minutes. 

“ It does not hurt me very much, madam,” 
Mary continued, “ but it is extremely disfigur¬ 
ing— not that it is of any importance, but I 
merely wished to inform you that my jaw may 
be much larger before dinner is served. You 
must not be astonished at my appearance. Can 
madam furnish me a cap and apron?” 

Virginia hurried off for the required badge 
of a waitress. Peachey sank in a chair, com¬ 
pletely overcome with laughter while Lady Mary 
assidulously practiced toothache in the mirror 
over the mantelpiece. 

“ But you can never carry it off, Lady Mary. 
Sir Percy is sure to recognize you no matter 
how swollen your jaw is or how much you 
masquerade in cap and apron.” 

“ You don’t know Englishmen, child. They 
never see servants. They are nothing more than 
hands to them, hands to serve them.” 


242 Masquerading Mary 

“ Sounds like Prince Dumbling in the story of 
the White Cat,” laughed Peachey. 

“Yes, I am sure Dumbling was English.” 

“You may be able to serve a whole meal 
without your husband’s seeing you, but you 
need not think you can put anything over on 
Price Winston.” 

“ Perhaps you had better warn him. He 
might recognize me and ruin the whole party.” 

“ Don’t you believe it. His profession is 
diplomacy.” 

“There speaks the lover! Do you think for 
an instant that Mr. Winston could carry off 
such a situation — to find himself being waited 
on at the table of his future brother-in-law by 
the run-away wife of an Englishman present?” 

“ I am as sure that Price will recognize you 
and carry it off as you are that Sir Percy will 
not see you, or seeing you, not recognize you.” 

“ I dare you not to warn your lover.” 

“ I take the dare.” 

“ Done!” 


CHAPTER XXII 


The telephone rang vigorously as Mrs. Meade 
returned with a new cap and apron she had in 
reserve. It was Mrs. Tucker Byrd, who at the 
eleventh hour must cancel her dinner engage¬ 
ment because of the illness of a mere brother- 
in-law. Of course the hostess took Colonel 
Byrd’s having a stroke quite personally. It 
was one more thing conspiring against the suc¬ 
cess of her entertainment of the nobility. The 
fact that her husband and sister-in-law expressed 
sympathy for the dear old colonel but added to 
her irritation. Mrs. Byrd should have let her 
know sooner, so Mrs. Meade declared, although 
the stroke had only just happened. No one 
could be asked that late in the day to fill her 
place. The table all upset I There was noth¬ 
ing more disconcerting than an unbalanced table. 
Peachey almost felt that it was up to her to 
withdraw so that the table might balance. 

Mary suddenly remembered the message she 
was to deliver. So many things had been 
crowded into her day that she had completely 
243 


244 Masquerading Mary 

forgotten Miss Somer. The unbalanced table 
brought the incident to mind. 

“ Excuse me, madam, but I forgot to tell 
you that I met a lady in the park this morn¬ 
ing who sent you a message that she was com¬ 
ing to supper.” 

“ Sent me a message? Who could it have 
been? You surely asked her name? ” exclaimed 
poor Virginia, impatiently. 

“ No, madam, but she was evidently a close 
connection of the family as she called all of you 
by name. She was dressed in what might be 
called dripping black. She suggested, among 
other things, that I make myself useful by roll¬ 
ing and whipping, not the pram and the baby, 
but ruffles. She also told me that she had em¬ 
broidered the pram cover—” 

“ Heavens! ” cried Virginia. “ Cousin Eliz¬ 
abeth Somer! Well! At least my table bal¬ 
ances now. But to think of your Cousin Lizzie 
coming! Wouldn’t it have been terrible if she 
and Mrs. Tucker Byrd had both come? After 
all, it is providential that since Colonel Byrd 
was going to have a stroke he had it before 
dinner.” 

Mary took the cap and apron and beat a hasty 
retreat. A prolonged ringing of the bell and 
Blanche came tearing down the hall. 


245 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Am it the phome or air it the do’ bell? ” she 
asked excitedly. 

“The door bell, fool — the door bell! ’’ said 
the mistress sternly. “ To think of your sug¬ 
gesting that creature as a possible waitress, 
Henry! ” 

“ Did you rope in Miss Mary after all, Vir¬ 
ginia? I think it is a shame to ask her. She 
looks to me like a princess in exile. And what 
a pretty wit she has, don’t you think so, 
Peachey? ” Peachey did think so. 

“ Rolling the pram and whipping the baby! ” 
laughed her brother. Virginia stiffened. 

“ I have an idea a negro mammy would be 
better for baby until he is a little older. I 
don’t like for a nurse to suggest that she might 
strike my child. I know you and Peachey are 
going to tell me that was a joke, but I think 
some things are too serious for jest.” 

It was Miss Somer arriving. She came sweep¬ 
ing into the drawing room with the air of be¬ 
ing monarch of all she surveyed. 

“ Well, Virginia,” she said in an extra deep 
rumble, “ your servants are very slow in answer¬ 
ing the bell. You got my message, I suppose.” 

“Yes, Cousin Elizabeth,” Virginia presented 
an icy cheek for Miss Somer’s perfunctory 
peck, “ I received your message. I am sorry 


246 Masquerading Mary 

you should have been kept waiting at the door, 
but your persistent ringing confused a green 
housemaid.” 

“ And Peachey I ” boomed Miss Somer. “ You 
did not tell me you were going out to supper.” 

“ Neither did you tell me. I left a message 
with Mrs. Leander Pike, however. I did not 
know I was invited to dinner until later in the 
day.” 

“'Ah, indeed! Very attentive of Virginia to 
get up a little family party in my honor.” 

“ It is not exactly a family party. Cousin 
Elizabeth,” said the hostess, who was plainly 
irritated. “ Price Winston is to be here and —” 

“ Well, Price Winston seems to be trying to 
connect himself with the family, not that I 
approve —” 

“And he is bringing with him Sir Percy 
Darcy.” Virginia pronounced the name very 
distinctly and with evident enjoyment. Miss 
Somer was not at all impressed. The English 
nobility was nothing to her. She thought much 
more of Virginia aristocracy. If high born 
Englishmen happened to have settled in Vir¬ 
ginia they had some cause for pride of birth 
and family, but otherwise they did not amount 
to much in her eyes. 

“ The first Somer who came to this country 


247 


Masquerading Mary 

married a Darcy, a great lady, and the third 
cousin once removed from the then reigning 
monarch. I am very glad you have asked this 
young man to meet me as I shall take pleasure 
in conversing with him on the subject of our 
ancestors.” 

Virginia remembered the newspaper item 
wLxh she had not had time to read. Leaving 
her husband to entertain his impossible kins¬ 
woman, she rapidly perused the rumpled page. 

Something made her knit her pretty brow. 

“ Lady Mary Dale! ” she exclaimed. Then 
she opened the drawer of an antique writing desk 
and drew forth Miss Mary’s credentials. 
“Peachey, come here!” she commanded excit¬ 
edly. “ Look at this letter of recommendation 
that Miss Mary gave me when I employed her. 
It is certainly signed Lady Mary Dale. And 
see here — this newspaper says Sir Percy 
Darcy’s wife is, or rather was, Lady Mary Dale. 
I wonder the governess did not tell me she had 
been in the employ of Sir Percy. Very sneaky 
and secretive I call her. I intend to ask Sir 
Percy what he knows about her. It is due 
Henry Marshall Meade the Fourth that we 
know more about the person who has him in 
charge.” 

“ Oh, Virginia, I wouldn’t mention the mat- 


248 Masquerading Mary 

ter to Sir Percy if I were you. You see, Eng¬ 
lishmen are so funny about servants — that is, 
high-born Englishmen are. They may never 
even notice them — look upon them as mere 
hands to serve them. I really think it would 
be the height of inelegance to broach the sub¬ 
ject to Sir Percy.” 

“ Perhaps you are right. Of course you have 
been abroad and all that, but — ” 

“ I tell you what we can do: Price can ask 
him about it to-morrow. Men can talk about 
things to each other without its being inelegant. 
Price wouldn’t mind. And, Virginia, I wouldn’t 
mention the matter to er — er — Miss Mary, 
either. You see, the important thing is to get 
your supper properly served and if the nerves 
of the waitress get upset she might — might 
spill the soup down our backs.” 

“ But we are not going to have soup.” 

Virginia wished heartily she had never de¬ 
cided on this old-fashioned Virginia supper. 
Here was another person expecting soup. No 
doubt Sir Percy would be wondering where the 
soup was. And here was that tiresome Mary 
again, come for final instructions perhaps, 
though any fool should be able to wait on the 
table without so much fuss about it. 

Mary was looking very pretty in cap and 


249 


Masquerading Mary 

apron. Evidently the toathache was arrested, 
as there was no sign of swelling. She had not 
come for final instructions, evidently feeling 
quite capable of waiting on an American table 
after her experience in England, but she wished 
to tell the mistress that it was perhaps best not 
to leave the baby alone for the evening as his 
teeth were undoubtedly cutting him. 

“ I do not mean he is ill, but he is restless 
and the nursery is far from the dining room.” 

Miss Somer, feeling that something was go¬ 
ing on that might possibly need her interfer¬ 
ence, left off in the middle of a sentence, in 
which she had been expounding to her Cousin 
Henry Meade how much more important was 
the family of Somer than all the Marshalls and 
Meades put together. She came forward and 
looked critically at the governess. 

“ So you remembered my message, did you? 
I thought afterwards I was imprudent to trust 
it to you. I neglected to tell you who I was, 
forgetting for the moment that you did not 
belong in Richmond, where every one who knows 
anything at all knows me.” 

“ I was able to identify you to Mrs. Meade by 
the same means that you did my charge — the 
perambulator robe, madam.” 

“You gave Mrs. Meade all my messages?” 


250 Masquerading Mary 

“ I am afraid I did not give her quite all of 
them, madam.’’ 

“ She gave me enough, I am sure,” said Vir¬ 
ginia, impatiently. 

“ Did she tell you I said the baby did not 
have on sufficient clothing? ” 

“ Excuse me, madam, but the message was 
that the baby was too warmly clad. I realized 
it myself as the sun grew hotter and so I re¬ 
moved his little sacque.” 

A snort from Miss Somer, indicative of her 
having been worsted only for the moment, 
though all who knew her knew that she would 
return to the charge later on; 

“And the baby, Mrs. Meade?” asked Mary, 
remembering about her toothache and wonder¬ 
ing if the mistress had noticed that the ominous 
swelling had gone down. 

“ I’ll send Blanche to look after him.” 

“ But, Mrs. Meade, could Blanche be trusted 
not to spill the baby any more than the soup ? ” 

“We are not going to have soup, but I catch 
your meaning. Who can look after Baby 
then? ” 

“ I would suggest Mike as a reliable person 
who is accustomed to babies.” 

Mrs. Meade looked meaningly at her hus¬ 
band. Miss Mary was evidently eager for the 


251 


Masquerading Mary 

society of the chauffeur. As for asking him to 
take care of a baby — that was absurd. She 
knew for a fact that he had left his last place 
because of being required to air a dog. For 
her part she wouldn’t dare ask such a favor. 

“ Perhaps he would do it for you, Miss 
Mary,” Mrs. Meade’s voice had a slight edge 
on it and her manner was a bit aggressive. 

“ I am sure he would,” said the governess 
sweetly. “ If I might suggest madam’s send¬ 
ing for Michael.” 

Mike was in the hall, evidently expecting to 
be sent for, and was promptly reprimanded 
for having kept the mistress waiting. There 
was a scowl on his pleasant Irish face and he 
walked with something of a swagger. The 
moment he caught sight of Mary his manner 
changed. He gave a perfunctory bow to his 
employers and with his eyes riveted on the 
nursery governess he pulled his forelock in the 
manner of the peasantry of Erin. 

“ Michael,” said Mary, “ Mrs. Meade is in 
a predicament. Her butler is ill and she is 
expecting distinguished guests for dinner. I 
am going to wait on the table for her—” 

“You!” cried the boy, aghast. 

“Yes, Michael,” in a voice all gentleness, 
“ and I want you to do something for me.” 


252 Masquerading Mary 

“ Anything you ask. La — Miss Mary,” 
humbly. 

“ The baby is a little restless because of his 
first tooth, which is trying to come through. I 
want you to look after him while I am busy.” 

“ Sure, and that’s easy.” 

“ Thank you so much, Michael. All you 
have to do is sit in the nursery, and if he frets 
turn him over. If he cries, take him up and 
comfort him — but you know so much about 
babies I need not tell you any more.” 

“ No, miss, I think I can manage.” Turning 
to Mr. Meade: “Is that all, sir?” 

“ That is all, Mike, and thank you very 
much.” Not a word of reprimand. 

“ And now, what do you think of her? ” asked 
Mrs. Meade, when nursery governess and chauf¬ 
feur had departed. “ She has got Mike so 
under hack I believe he would air a dog if she 
asked him to. Disgusting, I think it is. Not 
such a lady as you and Peachey would have her 
be, eh?” 

“ More of one, if possible,” declared Henry. 
“ She did not exactly ask Mike — she just told 
him. If she tells me to do something I am 
mighty afraid I’ll do it, too. Gee whiz! Isn’t 
she a beauty in apron and cap?” 

“ If you think she is beautiful with that 


253 


Masquerading Mary 

swollen jaw you must be as much under hack 
as Mike. I have always heard that the Eng¬ 
lish have poor dentists and the women lose their 
teeth early in life. I rather suspect this Miss 
Mary’s front teeth are false.” 

“ A forward hussy, I call her,” boomed forth 
Miss Somer. “ I recognize her now as a doubt¬ 
ful character we harbored for a short time at the 
home for working girls. I can’t recall the cir¬ 
cumstance of her being there, but I remember 
quite well she was a doubtful character and 
nothing but Puss Johnston’s soft and foolish 
amiability and so called charity made the Board 
put up with her even for the short time she re¬ 
mained with us. I predict that no good will 
come of your hiring such a person, Virginia. 
The matron of the home even had doubts about 
her owning the trunk she had there. It had 
initials on it that did not correspond with the 
name she gave as her own. As I recall the 
incident, I think the matron rather sus¬ 
pected the girl of having stolen the trunk as 
well as the clothes in it.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Her Golden Knight was in the house. Mary 
had heard the door-bell from her room, where 
she had flown to put on the toothache make-up 
as well as a few aging touches in the way of 
delicately drawn lines from nostrils to the cor¬ 
ners of the mouth, a suggestion of crows’ feet 
and a master stroke of a bit of court plaster 
covering one pearly front tooth. The swelling 
from the troublesome eye tooth was taken care 
of very well by forcing a wad of absorbent cot¬ 
ton under the upper lip, thereby twisting her 
pretty mouth all out of shape and giving to her 
face a sad, though ludicrous, expression. 

Her Golden Knight! Nobody had ever 
known that she thought of Sir Percy as her 
Golden Knight. It was ridiculously senti¬ 
mental, but why shouldn’t youth be sentimental? 
Perhaps it was because of this secret name she 
had for her lover and husband that the shock of 
his infidelity — as divulged by his mother and 
the perfidious captain — had well nigh crazed 
her. How could one’s Golden Knight do so 

254 


255 


Masquerading Mary 

foul a thing? The name she had called him in 
her thoughts came rushing back to her when 
she saw him on the screen, marching toward 
her so brave and straight, so gallant and true. 

He was her Golden Knight! And now he 
was in the same house with her. She peered 
over the upstairs bannister and feasted her 
eyes on him as Blanche, with much grinning 
and bowing, ushered him in. Yes, it was her 
Percy. She had almost forgotten how tall he 
was — taller than Price Winston, who was at 
least a foot taller than his little fiancee. How 
yellow his hair was — still curling a bit in spite 
of the vigorous and impatient brushing he al¬ 
ways gave it, scorning curls. She thought his 
face looked older and a bit sad; but it was diffi¬ 
cult to tell from an upper hall, and in the fleet¬ 
ing glimpse she had before the young men en¬ 
tered the drawing room at Blanche’s hospitable 
invitation: 

“ Yassir, yassir, all in an’ waitin’ fer you. 
Res’ yo’ hats an’ step in the parlor an’ take 
some cheers an’ set down.” 

Price Winston laughed and Mary gave the 
first notes of a laugh, but clapped her hand 
over her mouth and jumped back. Her hus¬ 
band paused a moment before he followed his 
friend into the drawing room; paused and looked 


256 Masquerading Mary 

vaguely down the hall, even casting his eyes up 
the stairs. 

Mary could hear bits of the introduction that 
followed. She heard Peachey’s: 

“ I hope Sir Percy remembers me as well as 
I do him and the pleasant occasion when we 
met.” 

“Ah, beastly bore I thought — no, no, not 
meeting you, but the theatricals at Dorset.” 

And Price Winston’s: 

“Ah, Miss Lizzie, I did not know you were 
to be here! This is a delightful and unexpected 
surprise.” 

And Miss Somer’s booming answer: 

“ It is strange that the guest of honor should 
surprise one.” 

“ Guest of honor — oh, er — I did not know 
you had come,” stammered Price, after a warn¬ 
ing pinch from Peachey. 

Then Mary heard no more. The waitress 
must be in readiness to announce dinner. Her 
heart was beating very rapidly under the snowy 
bib of the apron. Could she go through with 
it? Ah, after all, it was only play acting. For 
the time being she was an Irish waitress with 
the toothache. To-morrow she would have out 
the offending snag as she had already done the 
front tooth, thereby leaving a disfiguring gap. 


257 


Masquerading Mary 

She must make this explanation of her appear¬ 
ance to Aunt Maria and Blanche. 

It was a pity Lady Mary could not have 
heard the conversation between Price and 
Peachey. She would have been both amused 
and edified. 

“ Say, Peachey, how did the old hearse get in 
the parade?” 

“ Don’t be so disrespectful. I was astonished 
at your lack of diplomacy a moment ago. You, 
an attache at the Court of St. James! I thought 
nothing could throw you off your diplomatic 
balance. I have even boasted of it to — to a 
girl friend.” 

“ But I must confess that your venerable 
cousin is a very severe test. It was rather up¬ 
setting to find her here when Virginia had said 
she would invite either Mrs. Johnston or Mrs. 
Tucker Byrd. And then for her to claim to be 
the guest of honor! That was disconcerting.” 

“ To a diplomat, nothing should be discon¬ 
certing.” 

“Pm sorry! Try me again, honey.” 

“ All right, maybe you will be put to the test 
very soon. Virginia’s butler, Cy, is ill and the 
nursery governess is to serve dinner.” 

“But Henry tells me she is quite a lady — a 
real one.” 


258 


Masquerading Mary 

“ So she is — a real one — but sometimes real 
ladies do things that half way ladies won’t do. 
I am dying to hear whether Sir Percy has told 
you anything.” 

“ Yes, poor fellow, many things. He is aw¬ 
fully cut up. He doesn’t know why his wife 
left him, but does not believe that she left with 
Huntington.” 

“ That’s rather fine of him.” 

“ He says Huntington is a cad, but he trusts 
his wife implicitly.” 

“Men trust women more than women do men. 
I wonder why.” 

“ It seems that Huntington got excused from 
the wedding ceremonies of the prince, presum¬ 
ably to go to a sister who was supposed to be 
dying. Darcy heard it by the merest accident, 
but when he returned to Ensley there was Hunt¬ 
ington! ” 

“ I knew it! I knew it! Just what I said!” 

“ I don’t remember your saying anything 
about it.” 

“I mean—” 

“ You mean you are Miss Know-all, so I 
won’t tell you any more.” 

“ Oh, please! I don’t know a thing and I am 
dying to know something.” 

“ Darcy wants to find his wife. He hates the 


259 


Masquerading Mary 

idea of employing detectives, but feels that is 
the only way to find her. He thinks she is on 
the stage. She loved acting and was a born 
mimic. He is deeply concerned, because she 
must be out of funds. She had but recently 
recovered from a severe illness and sometimes 
he thinks maybe she has lost her reason and is 
wandering about the country half demented. 
She left a brief note, saying she was going to 
the Continent. But from something her maid 
let drop, Percy is convinced it is the American 
continent.” 

And then the hostess made a belated entrance 
and the tete-a-tete between the lovers must 
cease. Sir Percy was evidently relieved at her 
coming, as Miss Somer had been endeavoring 
to make him understand the intricacies of a 
union between Somer and Darcy that had taken 
place more than a century before. He was a 
fairly polite young man, but his patience had 
about reached the breaking point. He was per¬ 
fectly willing to concede relationship to the old 
person with the booming voice, but he was far 
from willing to hear any more about it. 

“ Virginia, you will no doubt be interested to 
learn that Sir Percy is of the same stock as 
the first Somer who came to this country. Like 
most of the present generation, he is ignorant 


260 Masquerading Mary 

of the ramifications of his family. But he has 
the nose and the name, which is proof enough 
for a genealogist.” 

Poor Percy felt his nose sadly. A very good 
nose it was, but he had a decided grudge against 
it for getting him into such difficulties. He 
almost wished it had been a pug — except that 
Mary had liked his nose. She had told him so 
repeatedly. Ah, me! Any nose would do to 
be miserable with. But that was a very good 
odor that caused those offending aristocratic 
nostrils to quiver involuntarily. 

Aunt Maria was in the act of making a waf¬ 
fle to test batter and waffle iron, and in a twin¬ 
kling the unmistakable and pleasing odor had 
begun to permeate the house. All doors might 
be closed as tightly as doors could be closed, 
but a baking waffle can not be downed. 

Price Winston’s nostrils quivered also. With 
a long drawn sigh of delight, he exclaimed: 

“ Waffles, Darcy! Mrs. Meade is giving us 
a typical Virginia supper this evening instead 
of the dinner that is usually served in the civ¬ 
ilized world. I made an especial request for it 
for your sake.” 

“Awfully kind, I’m sure,” said Sir Percy. 

At Price’s announcement Miss Somer snorted 
loudly: 


261 


Masquerading Mary 

" You made the request, indeed! I sent word 
to Virginia myself by that saucy English maid 
that I was coming to have supper with her — 
not dinner. You can thank me for whatever 
we are about to receive. Our forefathers dined 
at three and supped at seven and what was good 
enough for them is good enough for me and 
should be for all the rest of this present gen¬ 
eration.” 

“Of vipers!” Price whispered to Peachey. 

“ Supper is all right,” said Henry, “ but I can 
not work on a heavy mid-day dinner.” 

“ Our forefathers did not work,” answered 
Miss Somer. 

“ They worked other people, though.” Henry 
was hungry and his dictatorial old cousin was 
getting on his nerves. He was also irritated 
that his wife should have asked Miss Mary to 
wait on the table, insisting that it was at his 
instigation. Anyhow, it might prove rather in¬ 
teresting to see how the girl would rise to the 
occasion. Henry was aware of the fact that 
Virginia had become jealous of the English 
nurse, jealous because of his evident admira¬ 
tion for her. He had never noticed it until a 
few minutes ago. He wondered if it had 
suddenly sprung into existence or if it had been 
smouldering for days or weeks. He tried to 


262 Masquerading Mary 

remember whether or not he had expressed any 
great admiration for the girl before this eve¬ 
ning. Voiced or not, he had admired her from 
the beginning. Perhaps Virginia was not so 
dense as one gave her credit, or blame, for be¬ 
ing. But Mr. Meade would not allow himself 
to dwell on his wife’s stupidity even in his in¬ 
most secret thoughts. He had always en¬ 
deavored to think of her stupidity as naivete. 
Stupid indeed! Devilish clever she was at times. 
This evening her cleverness was undeniable. 
She had surmounted all difficulties except Cousin 
Lizzie, and the evening was young yet. No 
doubt in time she could even down that redoubt¬ 
able old lady. 

“ Thank goodness, dinner at last! ” sighed the 
host as the substitute waitress appeared at the 
door and in a low, sweet voice announced: 

“Madam is served!” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Lady Mary was right. Her husband ignored 
the presence of the servant as she had said he 
would. With Mrs. Meade on his arm he passed 
close by the masquerading lady, close enough to 
have touched her had he stretched forth his hand. 
However, Mrs. Meade looked critically at the 
waitress, critically and haughtily. She noted 
that the toothache had progressed and also 
moved. She was sure the swelling had been 
on the left side earlier in the evening and now 
it was plainly on the right. One of the things 
that made Mrs. Henry Marshall Meade so 
devilishly clever was that she never forgot a 
detail such as on which side a swelling was. 
At least Henry and Peachey could not say the 
girl was beautiful. She looked positively homely 
w r ith her face all lined and seamed. A front 
tooth out, too! She must have forgotten her 
plate. Very careless and disrespectful of her 
to leave it out when she should want to look 
her best in honor of the distinguished guest. 

Price Winston also looked critically at the 

263 


264 Masquerading Mary 

English girl. His host had told him of the 
pretty nursery governess, and the fact that Mrs. 
Meade had pressed her into waiting on the 
table, and Peachey’s assertion that she was very 
much a lady, had piqued his curiosity. His 
glance caught her off her guard. Darcy had 
his back to her. For the moment she forgot to 
be the Irish waitress with a toothache and was 
the young wife with a heartache. The disfigur¬ 
ing wad of cotton did not sufficiently disguise 
the Lady Mary Darcy from the astute gaze of 
the young American. 

“ Why didn’t you put a fellow on?” he 
whispered to Peachey. 

“ A diplomat should always be on.” 

The business of eating soon engrossed the 
company. Mary was kept so busy she forgot 
she was playing a part and became a waitress 
in earnest. As fast as Aunt Maria could bake 
waffles Blanche hurried with them to the din¬ 
ing-room door, where Mary relieved her of her 
burden and passed them around the table, the 
diners in turn relieving her. Sir Percy ate 
enormously. His wife almost felt it her duty to 
remonstrate with him. Indeed, she did delib¬ 
erately skip him once, but was reprimanded in 
a low tone by the mistress and must go back 
and serve him to his tenth — yes, his tenth. 


265 


Masquerading Mary 

She had counted. It was with relief that she 
heard Blanche’s sibilant whisper as she handed 
in a heaped-up plate of the delectable dainties: 

“ The las’ er the batter! ” 

The supper party had not been the brilliant 
success that Mrs. Meade had hoped it would 
be, except so far as the food was concerned. 
That was perfect and evidently appreciated by 
the guest of honor. He talked very little and 
seemed steeped in gloom. Occasionally he 
laughed and his laugh was boyish and happy, 
but each time he caught himself up as though 
he were at a funeral and laughter out of order. 

Price Winston, usually full of good stories 
and clever repartee, was silent and nervous. 
He managed to dispose of many waffles and 
showed no mercy to the fried chicken. But 
he had the air of one sitting on the edge of 
the crater of an active volcano. He did not 
seem to be able to keep his eyes off the face 
of the waitress. His first shock at the dis¬ 
tressing change in the appearance of the one 
time beautiful Lady Mary Darcy gave way 
to amusement as he realized the clever make-up 
of age and toothache. Price Winston had in 
years gone by been an active member in the 
Little Theatre League and had served a whole 
season on the Make-up Committee. The miss- 


266 Masquerading Mary 

ing front tooth did not fool him and the lines 
of care, from nostril to corners of the mouth, 
only delighted the soul of the artist. In spite 
of his amusement, he was filled with dread that 
at any moment his friend Darcy might recog¬ 
nize his wife and a scene ensue. 

Peachey made a valiant effort to hold up her 
end of the conversation, but so intense was her 
sympathy for Lady Mary that at times she 
found it difficult to keep from weeping. Then 
again the ludicrous side of the situation ap¬ 
pealed to her so strongly that she caught her¬ 
self laughing excitedly over remarks made by 
her Cousin Lizzie or her Brother Henry that 
w T ere not intended at all to be humorous. 

The ball of conversation was kept rolling 
principally by Miss Somer and Mr. Meade; 
the former determined to monopolize the con¬ 
versation and the latter equally determined that 
she should not. He attempted to tell the story 
of the Bishop of Kentucky, who was inordi¬ 
nately fond of waffles. This was in connection 
with a remark Sir Percy had made in regard 
to the delectability of that food. It seems that 
on one of his parochial visits the Bishop ate so 
many waffles that the small black boy, whose 
business it was to run from outside kitchen to 
dining-room bearing hot waffles, was kept out 


Masquerading Mary 267 

of breath by the voracity of the guest. Finally 
the little darkey said to the Bishop in a con¬ 
fiding whisper: 

“ Mr. Bishop, couldn’t you eat jes’ one mo’? ” 

“ Why, yes, my boy, I could eat just one 
more.” 

“ Well, Mr. Bishop, tain’t no mo’.” 

The tale was told after Blanche had an^ 
nounced in her stage whisper that there was no 
more batter, and waffles were passed to Sir 
Percy immediately following the remark. Vir¬ 
ginia w r as plainly shocked by her husband’s story, 
which she considered cast reflections on both her 
honored guest and her own housekeeping. 

“ Why, Henry, I don’t think Sir Percy has 
eaten so many waffles, and I am sure there are 
plenty more.” Then Miss Elizabeth Somer 
spoke up: 

“ I have taken no interest in the Bishop of 
Kentucky since I heard that he is preaching to 
the Negroes. Not at all a seemly thing for 
an Episcopal Bishop to do. I wrote him a let¬ 
ter, which I felt at liberty to do since his first 
wife was a distant connection of my father, 
and I told him that I was not alone in thinking 
there were other religious sects that were plenty 
good enough for darkies.” 

“ That is interesting,” said Sir Percy. “ Now 


268 Masquerading Mary 

in England we encourage the peasantry to stick 
to the established Church.” 

“ That is all very well where there is an 
established peasantry as there is in England — 
and used to be here before the war.” 

“ But Cousin Elizabeth,” laughed Peachey, 
“ I fancy we shall all go to Heaven by the same 
road and on the same kind of ticket.” 

“Nonsense, Peachey! A Negro who goes to 
Heaven is undoubtedly a good Negro and will 
know his place there as well as on earth.” 

“ I agree with you perfectly, Cousin Eliza¬ 
beth,” said Mrs. Meade, who felt that she had 
been too long out of the conversation. “ Segre¬ 
gation of the races is the only way to solve the 
problem.” 

Then it was that Mary laughed. It was not 
a loud laugh and she managed to hold it in 
until she got out of the dining room. From the 
butler’s pantry it came rippling forth. Sir 
Percy turned his head and listened as though 
he expected to catch another note of a bird song. 
Price Winston overturned his glass of water, 
flooding the table cloth and thereby irritating 
his hostess, who remarked acidly: 

“ Price, you seem very nervous.” 

“ Smoking too much,” he answered, searching 
wildly for some excuse. 


269 


Masquerading Mary 

“ Then eschew tobacco, O, suave and finished 
diplomat,” teased Peachey. 

“Peachey!” exclaimed Miss Somer, “I am 
astonished at you — shocked, in fact, that you 
should advise any gentleman to chew tobacco. 
Smoking is all right. I am fond of a good 
cigar or even cigarettes in moderation — ” 

“ Have one of mine,” said Sir Percy, taking 
from his pocket a silver cigarette holder. “ They 
are very mild, put up for ladies, in fact.” 

Miss Elizabeth was almost speechless with 
indignation. 

“ Is this an insult or an English joke?” 

“ Pardon me, madam, it is neither. What 
do American ladies smoke?” 

“ Ladies, whether they be American or Eng¬ 
lish, do not smoke.” 

“ I will have one of your cigarettes, Sir 
Percy,” put in Peachey. “ I have always in¬ 
tended to learn to smoke and I think I’ll begin 
right now on one of yours.” 

“ Good for you, little sister,” whispered 
Henry, “ you have saved the pieces.” Miss 
Somer snorted and was for the moment silenced. 

“ What a beautiful cigarette case, Sir Percy,” 
said Peachey. 

“ Yes, my most cherished possession. I never 
move without it,” said Percy dreamily. 


270 Masquerading Mary 

“ Why, Sir Percy, I didn’t know men carried 
vanity boxes! ” exclaimed Mrs. Meade as she 
touched a tiny spring, thereby disclosing a mir¬ 
ror concealed in the back of the case. 

“ Ah, really, you know, the case doesn’t ex¬ 
actly belong to me. It was my wife’s.” Vir¬ 
ginia solemnly handed it back to him. “ Some¬ 
times,” he continued dreamily, “ I look in this 
little mirror and then I think how often her 
pretty image has smiled from it. I can almost 
see her — ” 

Mary stood behind Sir Percy, her countenance 
working with emotion. He held the mirror 
from him, totally oblivious of the fact that he 
was thinking aloud. For a flash the face of 
the waitress was reflected in the little mirror 
and then was gone. Thank God the supper was 
over and Mary need not appear again. She 
had reached the end of her tether of endurance. 

Sir Percy came to himself and looked around 
the table. All the faces were pained, embar¬ 
rassed, or curious. 

“ I beg your pardon — didn’t mean to make 
a bally ass of myself.” He put the cigarette 
case on the table and drained his coffee cup. 

Henry came to the rescue with a proposition 
that he should take the dinner party out for a 
spin in his new car. The plan met with general 


271 


Masquerading Mary 

approval except from Miss Somer, who said 
she took no stock in the modern means of loco¬ 
motion and would rather spend her time in the 
library reading the Southern Churchman. 
Henry insisted upon her accompanying them 
only so much as politeness demanded of him. 
It was a distinct relief to all of them that the 
unwelcome guest declined the invitation. 

“Old wet blanket! ” muttered Henry. “By 
the way, Price, I wish you would show Sir 
Percy those old silver tankards that my grand¬ 
father’s slaves buried during the war to keep 
the Yankees from making away with them. I 
must get out the car. My chauffeur is off for 
the evening and Virginia and Peachey must 
powder their noses and put on their scarves.” 

And so it came about that Price Winston and 
Sir Percy Darcy were alone for a few minutes. 
Price going through the motions of showing the 
family heirlooms ranged on the sideboard. 
Mary, seated in the butler’s pantry, could hear 
every word of their conversation. 

“ Winston, old fellow, I am sorry to have 
been such a duffer with your friends, but I 
can’t shake off a feeling I have. I almost think 
I am going mad. I have the sensation that 
Mary was with me all evening. Most uncanny, 
I can assure you. Maybe it is an evil omen 


272 Masquerading Mary 

and my girl is in trouble — or even dying or 
dead. She used to tell Irish tales of the dying 
being able to manifest themselves to their 
loved ones. Oh, Winston, do you believe I 
can ever find her? ” 

“Yes, I do, Darcy. I am as sure that you 
will find her and that she will be well, as I am 
that we are standing here.” 

“ Twice this evening I thought I heard her 
laugh — you know Mary’s laugh? It is differ¬ 
ent from any other laugh. Again and again 
the shape of her hands flashed before my eyes. 
I have been trying to recall the shape of her 
hands ever since she — she — but somehow they 
eluded me. Now I can remember them well. 
Once I thought I saw her sweet face in the 
little mirror — not quite her face — it was sad 
and strangely distorted—but the eyes were 
hers. It was only for a second, and of course 
I know it was nothing but my imagination.” 

“Well, buck up, old boy! I have a pricking 
in my thumbs that you will have your wife back 
with you before so very long,” declared Price, 
wishing that he could take matters in his own 
hands and tell this sentimental young man that 
his wife had been handing him waffles all eve¬ 
ning and watching him eat them, and on her 
face there had been an expression that sug- 


273 


Masquerading Mary 

gested satirical amusement. But perhaps the 
time was not ripe for such disclosures. He had 
promised Peachey and must stick to his word. 
He could merely reiterate that Lady Mary was 
in the land of the living and no doubt would 
soon be in the arms of her Percy. 

“ You are a great comfort, Winston. I could 
not have talked to an Englishman as I have 
to you. We Anglo-Saxons are timid when it 
comes to expressing sentiment to one another.” 

“ But I am Anglo-Saxon.” 

“ Of course, but you have been fed differently 
for generations. Perhaps a century or so of 
fried chicken and waffles has made you more 
sympathetic. Roast beef and Yorkshire pud¬ 
ding do not make for sentiment.” 

“That’s so! A worm is but tobacco in an¬ 
other form,” laughed Price. 

“ Another thing — if I don’t bore you,” con¬ 
tinued Sir Percy, sadly, “ I am very sensitive to 
odours, and again and again this evening I have 
been conscious of that delicate, indefinable per¬ 
fume that clings always to my Mary. Not a 
scent — I don’t believe she uses a perfume — 
but the faint sweetness of the eglantine or eve¬ 
ning primrose when first it opens.” 

“ Er -— er =— could it have been the cigar¬ 
ette?” 


274 Masquerading Mary 

44 No, man, no! I can tell the difference be¬ 
tween my wife and tobacco. It makes me think 
of that song Mary used to sing about 4 1 sent 
thee late a rosy wreath/ You remember how 
it goes: 4 But thou thereon didst only breathe 
and sendst it back to me — Since when it blooms 
and smells, I swear, not of itself but thee’,” 


CHAPTER XXV 


A toot from Henry’s horn warned them that 
the new car was champing to show its speed. 
Virginia captured the nobleman and was off 
with him, much to the relief of Price Winston, 
who was longing for one moment alone with his 
sweetheart. Peachey, however, was still en¬ 
grossed in the affairs of Lady Mary. 

“ Go in the hall, Price, there’s a dear, and lose 
your hat or gloves or something — just to keep 
Henry quiet. I simply must see Lady Mary 
a moment.” 

“ I’ll do it if you—” 

“ All right! I will.” 

“ Oh, Peachey, what an Alberta you are! 
That’s the first kiss I have had from you for 
days, what with that wretched boarding-house 
parlor and Monroe Parks and — ” 

“As Aunt Maria sings: ‘No hiding place 
down here’,” laughed Peachey, giving him an¬ 
other for good measure. “ Now run and lose 
your hat, little boy.” Then she called Lady 
Mary, who was in the butler’s pantry, well 
275 


276 Masquerading Mary 

knowing her little friend would not go out with¬ 
out speaking to her. She had managed to re¬ 
move the make-up, as well as the disfiguring 
toothache, and her face was rosy and her eyes 
sparkling. 

“ My dear, my dear,” cried Peachey, embrac¬ 
ing her. “ Please, please, let Price tell Sir 
Percy. I never saw so wretched a man. He is 
dying of love for you.” 

“ He took a great deal of nourishment for a 
dying man. My arm aches with the serving 
of waffles.” 

“ You surely would not begrudge him that 
comfort. Anyhow, you won the bet. Sir Percy 
lived up to what you said better than Price did 
to what I hoped of him. But be quick. Will 
you let Price tell your husband? ” 

The horn gave a prolonged tooting that would 
not be ignored in spite of Price’s reiteration 
that he could not find his hat. 

“ Go now, dear little American, I’ll let you 
know when you return from your drive.” 

Price entered the dining room. At the sight 
of Lady Mary, restored to her natural beauty, 
he gasped. Then he took the girl’s hands in 
both of his and leaning over he kissed them 
reverently. 

“ Lady Mary, I am yours to command.” 


277 


Masquerading Mary 

But the impatient toot of Henry’s horn could 
no longer be endured. 

Mary stood for a moment after they were 
gone, looking at the place where her husband 
had sat. A restlessness possessed her. Thank 
goodness the dinner was over! Anyhow she had 
not spilled the imaginary soup. The table must 
be cleared. What! Sir Percy had forgotten 
his cigarette case. There it was at his place. 
She picked it up and clasped it to her bosom. 
She opened the vanity side and gazed at her¬ 
self in the mirror. 

“ Oh, Mary, Mary, have done with mas¬ 
querading! ” She drew forth a cigarette and 
lit it at one of the candles, and sinking in the 
chair so lately occupied by her husband she 
closed her eyes luxuriously. 

“ Lawd love us, Miss Mary, I ain’t never 
seed a white ’ooman smoke befo\ I seed ’em 
dip snuff, though. Does you lak the tas’ er 
smokin’?” asked Blanche. 

“ Yes, have one.” 

“No’m, no’m! I got habits ernough. Aunt 
Maria done sent me ter say if you set right down 
ter the table she got a scrumptious batch er 
waffles helt back fer you.” 

“ How charming of her! Will you serve 
me?” 


278 Masquerading Mary 

“ Sho I will. Miss ’Ginia thinks I ain’t got 
style ernough, but I is. I kin walk with as 
el’gant a air as the nixt.” Suiting the action 
to the word, Blanche brought in a laden tray, 
held high after the manner of the waiters on the 
steamboat. 

“ Thank you, Blanche. All of you are very 
kind to me.” 

“ Lawsamussy, Miss Mary, don’t you know 
us all knows you is quality. Niggers is reg’lar 
bloodhoun’s. They knows blue bloods from po’ 
whites jes’ by the smell of ’em. Uncle Cy an’ 
Aunt Maria spotted you the minute they sot 
eyes on you. Now you eat yo’ fill, Miss Mary, 
an’ I’ll go out an’ see if Aunt Maria ain’t got 
a few necks an’ backs fer me.” 

Mary looked at the pile of waffles in front 
of her, sighed, shook her head and pushed them 
away. Suddenly she remembered Mike and his 
little charge. Almost simultaneous with her 
thought of them they appeared in the doorway, 
the baby asleep and comfortably held in the 
crook of the boy’s arm. Mary jumped up from 
the table. 

“Michael, Michael! How could I have for¬ 
gotten you and the baby? And didn’t Mrs. 
Meade see that you were released. But of 
course she didn’t.” 


279 


Masquerading Mary 

“Not her! She’s too busy looking after 
number one! But don’t you worry, Miss Mary.” 

“ I’m so ashamed — but Michael I have had 
a strenuous day and am so upset. I can think 
of nothing but my own affairs.” 

“ Sure and you have had enough affairs of 
your own to keep you busy. I would have 
looked after the little shaver until doomsday 
if I hadn’t been famished for some grub. Sit¬ 
ting up there in the nursery all by myself while 
the kid slept, I got to thinking about my Mither, 
God rest her soul, and Miss Di Rowney that 
married a nobleman — and her poor little lamb 
alone here in America out at service — and then 
the happenings of the day and what we saw at 
the movies — and what you told me afterwards 
about the old Do-wagger — and then the mis¬ 
tress raising the divil about my being five min¬ 
utes late when she thinks nothing of keeping me 
out in all weather for hours.” 

“You poor Michael! Sit right down here 
and eat these waffles all buttered and hot.” 

“ Oh, Miss Mary! ” 

“ Do as I tell you. Here, give me the baby.” 

Mike did not need much persuading, but sat 
down and fell to with a relish. Between mouth¬ 
fuls he continued: 

“ It was all I could do to keep from telling 


280 Masquerading Mary 

her that I couldn’t help being late as I had to 
look after a real lady. And then to be called 
in and told that my little Miss Mary, Lady 
Mary, was going to wait on the table where her 
own husband was the honored guest. Gee! The 
pity of it was enough to make a man hungry.” 

Mary laughed. 

“ Tell me, Michael, does grief always make 
a man hungry? ” 

“It hits ’em different ways, Miss, but it al¬ 
ways finds me empty. When I’m in trouble I 
mostly overeats.” 

“Sir Percy ate so much this evening I could 
hardly believe he was missing me at all, 
Michael.” 

“ Aw, that doesn’t mean anything. It looks 
like sometimes a fellow tries to fill up with 
food the place where his heart used to be.” 

“And now I am going to light one of my 
own especial brand of cigarettes for you, 
Michael, so you can top off a very good 
supper.” 

“ Yes, a mighty good one, and I reckon the 
little * steps ’ at home will be wondering where 
I am and saving me supper until it is dried up 
to a crisp.” 

Mike leaned back and blew beautiful blue 
rings of smoke as he looked at the lovely lady 


281 


Masquerading Mary 

and thought of the old days in Donegal when 
that same lovely lady was a tiny girl and they 
sat together on the low bench and watched the 
smoke from the peat fire curling up the chim¬ 
ney. Mary smiled at Mike and thought of her 
Golden Knight, marching in the London street 
and coming closer and closer to her. 

The reverie of the two was rudely broken into 
by the rumbling voice of Miss Somers as she 
stalked into the dining room, Southern Church¬ 
man in her hand and battle in her eye. 

“Well! Then this is the modern custom! 
The nurse maid entertains the chauffeur in the 
dining room while the master and mistress are 
out; and the baby, instead of being left in the 
cradle, is lugged downstairs. Smoking, too! 
Sir Percy Darcy’s cigarettes — ah, and the case 
of his dead wife! ” 

“ I did not understand she was dead,” said 
Mary, holding the silver case tightly. 

“ Do not presume to talk back to me. The 
emotion with which he spoke of her plainly indi¬ 
cated that she was dead. Give me that silver 
case, young woman, and I will return it to its 
lawful owner.” 

“ I am its lawful owner,” said the girl simply. 

“ You?” 

“ Yes, I!” 


282 Masquerading Mary 

“And how did you become so?” indignantly. 

“ Sir Percy Darcy gave it to me.” 

“Nonsense! When, may I ask?” 

“ Perhaps he meant it for a tip. He left it 
by his plate, and silver left by a guest’s plate is 
always looked upon by the servants as a tip.” 

“ Absurd! I have always heard that English 
servants expect a tip at every turn, but did not 
think it possible that a handsome piece of silver, 
accidentally left on the supper table by a guest, 
would be construed as a tip, even by the most 
brazen of maids. Give me that cigarette case.” 
Miss Somer had taken on a tone both ag¬ 
gressive and commanding. She attempted to 
take the cigarette case by force, but Mary 
jumped from her seat and quickly put the 
table between them. 

“ You refuse — then I shall speak to Mrs. 
Meade of your impertinence.” 

“ That is as you chose, madam, I am leaving 
Mrs. Meade’s service at any rate.” 

“Leaving! When?” 

“ To-night, perhaps.” She took off her cap 
and asked Mike to untie the apron so that she 
would not have to awaken the baby, who slept 
peacefully and happily in her arms. 

Miss Somer went quickly from the room and 
Mary and Mike were guilty of giggling when 


283 


Masquerading Mary 

they heard her call up police headquarters on 
the telephone, demanding a policeman immedi¬ 
ately. She stated that she was at the home of 
her cousin, Mr. Henry Marshall Meade, and 
since Mr. and Mrs. Meade were both away from 
home she felt it to be her duty to inform the 
authorities that the nurse had committed a theft 
of the most flagrant kind and she was informed 
that the girl intended to leave the service of 
Mrs. Meade immediately. She hung up the 
receiver with a satisfied click and returned to 
the dining room. 

“ Now we shall see to whom this cigarette 
case belongs. I feel it to be my duty to pro¬ 
tect the interests of my second cousin in his 
absence. Give me the baby. I do not con¬ 
sider you a proper person to have the care of 
my second cousin, once removed.” 

Mike sprang from his chair with a: “ See 
here! You — ” but Mary’s “Never mind, 
Michael,” quieted him. Mary gave the sleep¬ 
ing infant to the indignant old lady, who held 
him gingerly from her. 

“Perhaps you would feel more comfortable 
if you had on an apron,” suggested Mary. 
“Allow me!” Miss Somer submitted stiffly and 
Mary tied the ruffled waitress apron around 
her waist. She then seated herself to await 


284 Masquerading Mary 

developments. Mary’s discarded cap, a tiny 
bit of lace trimmed organdy, had dropped to 
the floor. Mike picked it up and lightly placed 
it on Miss Somer’s head. That lady, already 
supporting much false hair on the crown, did 
not feel the added weight of the bit of organdy. 

The front door opened to admit the returned 
automobilists. The voice of Sir Percy Darcy 
was heard explaining that he had left something 
in the dining room and must get it. As he 
entered by one door Mary made her exit into 
the butler’s pantry, drawing Mike with her. 
Seeing Miss Somer in cap and apron and hold¬ 
ing a baby, the young Englishman made a fatal 
error. 

“ Ah, nurse, I left my cigarette case here on 
the table. Have you by chance seen it?” 

“Nurse, indeed! It seems strange that in 
half an hour you should completely forget the 
lady by whom you sat at supper.” 

“Ah, beg pardon! Stupid of me I am sure, 
but the garb and occupation. Please, have you 
seen my cigarette case ? ” 

“ A mere apron and baby could not trans¬ 
form me into the semblance of a nurse.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Meade, following their guest 
into the dining room, were struck dumb with 
amazement to see their elderly relative in cap 


285 


Masquerading Mary 

and apron, gingerly holding Henry Marshall 
Meade IV in her bony arms. 

“ By Jove, Cousin Elizabeth, how chic you 
are! I never saw you look handsomer,” ex¬ 
claimed Mr. Meade. 

“ Nonsense! Henry Meade, there are serious 
matters that should occupy your attention,” 
said Miss Somer sternly. 

“ But what is my baby doing down stairs 
this time of night?” cried Mrs. Meade, who 
was sure Miss Somer had gone quite mad. 

“ That is for your menials to divulge, un¬ 
less they have already escaped before the offi¬ 
cers of the law come and do their duty. I 
came into the dining room for a glass of water 
and you can imagine my astonishment and dis¬ 
gust to find your chauffeur seated at the table 
eating waffles, although I distinctly heard it 
announced at supper that there was no more 
batter. Yes, eating waffles! And your precious 
English nursery governess was seated by him, 
holding the baby in her arms and smoking one 
of Sir Percy’s cigarettes.” 

“Miss Mary? There, Henry, what did I tell 
you,” said Virginia. 

“ Lots of things! ” muttered Henry, who was 
puzzled but not at all excited. As for Sir 
Percy, he stood and looked on, very much at a 


286 Masquerading Mary 

loss as to what it all meant, but determined to 
stick it out until his cigarette case was restored 
to him. 

“ And when I accused the wench of theft,” 
boomed Miss Elizabeth, “ seeing that she had 
taken possession of the handsome silver cigarette 
case, she brazenly announced that it was her 
property, claiming that Sir Percy had given it 
to her.” 

“How’s that?” from Percy. 

“ Yes, she said you had given it her. She 
hesitated long enough to make up a lie; said 
that you had left it at your place as a tip — 
the cigarette case of your dead wife.” 

“My dead wife! Oh, dear lady, what do 
you know of my wife? What makes you say 
she is dead?” The young man was as white 
as the table cloth. “Tell me what do you 
know of her?” 

“ Nothing! ” said Miss Somer, shortly. “ You 
gave the impression she was dead.” 

“ Do something, Henry Meade! Say some¬ 
thing! ” urged Virginia. Henry tried to quiet 
his aged cousin, who was still holding the baby, 
and at the same time endeavored to explain to 
Sir Percy. 

“ I can’t quite make it out, Sir Percy, but I 
am sure there is a mistake somewhere. This 


287 


Masquerading Mary 

Miss Mary, who is nursing our son, waited on 
the table this evening — ” 

“ Mary! ” 

“Yes, Miss Mary! A deuced pretty girl 
except for a toothache that had somewhat 
marred her beauty for the time being. Per¬ 
haps you noticed her.” 

“ Now, Henry,” broke in Virginia, “ you 
must know that English people, I mean the 
better classes, never notice servants.” 

“ Don’t they? ” broke in Percy. “ I never 
thought of that, but I did not notice the 
waitress. Mary, you say her name is?” 

The door bell rang sharply, and Blanche, 
breathless and excited, ushered in a dapper 
policeman who came directly to the point. 

“ Mr. Meade, I came on a call from your 
house — nurse maid accused of stealing a valu¬ 
able article belonging to a guest. Is this the 
nurse?” he asked, approaching Miss Somer, 
who trembled so violently with rage that the 
baby was in danger of being dropped. 

“ The sixth insult I have received this eve¬ 
ning,” she rumbled, haughtily. 

Mary, whose maternal instinct seemed to be 
developed more highly than the baby’s own 
mother, could bear it no longer and rushed in 
the room. 


288 Masquerading Mary 

“ Give me the baby before you spill him, ,, 
she said, and took the sleeping infant from the 
now unresisting arms of Miss Somer. 

“ There stands the culprit! The stolen goods 
on her! See, tucked in her belt is the missing 
silver case! Officer, do your duty.” Miss 
Elizabeth pointed her finger at Mary. 

“But this cigarette case is mine. Isn’t it 
Percy? ” 

“Percy!” cried Mrs. Meade in a scandalized 
tone. As for Mr. Meade, he just sank in a 
chair and laughed and laughed so heartily that 
Blanche, who had never left the room since she 
had ushered in the policeman and who was ever 
ready for hilarity from any cause, whether she 
knew what the joke was or not, laughed too; 
and Aunt Maria peeped curiously through the 
half open door. 

From the moment Mary entered the room 
Sir Percy had stood like one in a trance. Now, 
at Mary’s direct question, and at the sound of 
his name, he sprang forward and, taking Mary, 
baby and all in his arms, sobbed out: 

“Oh, Mary, Mary, my Mary!” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


An Englishman is no more inclined to em¬ 
brace his wife in public than he is to allow him¬ 
self to show emotion to another Englishman, 
but perhaps the waffles and fried chicken had 
somewhat softened Sir Percy’s adamantine 
Anglo-Saxon reserve, at least he kept on hug¬ 
ging Mary, regardless of the fact that he was 
surrounded by a room full of curious persons. 

Mr. Meade stopped laughing and gave the 
policeman a cigar, informing him there would 
be no arrests for the time being and that he 
might as well leave. 

“Not even the old one in the cap?” ques¬ 
tioned the officer regretfully, and then Miss 
Elizabeth Somer clapped her hand to the top 
of her head and pulled off the organdy abomi¬ 
nation. 

“ I must have put it there without thinking,” 
she actually faltered. So great was the poor 
lady’s amour propre that she could not for an 
instant harbor the thought that anyone had been 
so bold as to violate her sacred person to the 
289 


290 Masquerading Mary 

extent of placing the badge of a menial on her 
august head. 

Price and Peachey, who had been watching 
the development of the drama from the hall door, 
were smiling happily. 

“ Things are breaking their way,” whispered 
Price. 

“ Isn’t it glorious? ” from Peachey. 

Mrs. Meade puckered her pretty brow again 
and stood a moment irresolute, then she hurried 
to the telephone and once more called up the 
society editress of the morning paper. 

“ Yes, Miss Davis, this is Mrs. Henry Mar¬ 
shall Meade the Third. You remember I prom¬ 
ised to call you later on this evening. I want 
to tell you, Miss Davis, that there is not a word 
of truth in the report in that foreign letter that 
Sir Percy Darcy and his wife, the Lady Mary, 
are separated. In fact, they are here in my 
home, our house guests. Yes, both of them 
were here to dinner. It was only a foolish 
mistake. Yes, indeed, Miss Davis, I am sure 
any publicity setting them right in the eyes of 
the world would be acceptable to them. Yes. 
Yes, indeed, she is very charming — much ad¬ 
mired and very beautiful. A devoted couple! 
I can’t see how such a foolish report ever got 
out. Not at all, Miss Davis, indeed you are 


291 


Masquerading Mary 

very welcome. Yes, no doubt the Associated 
Press would be glad to get hold of this authentic 
news.” 

Virginia’s voice was clear at all times and 
her telephone voice was far reaching, her 
enunciation distinct, every word unmistakable. 
The above conversation could be heard by any¬ 
one not too engrossed to listen. 

“ Isn’t that just like her? ” Peachey whis¬ 
pered to Price. 

“Exactly! That’s what I like about my 
sister-in-law to be. She is always true to form; 
always behaves like herself. She is actually 
putting a social feather in her cap. Do you 
think it is time for us to step up and make 
Percy break away? I think this hugging has 
gone on long enough.” 

The baby thought so too. He awoke and 
whimpered. Mrs. Meade also awoke to her 
responsibilities as a mother. She offered to 
take the baby, but Lady Mary clung to him. 

“ I hate to give him up. He has been all 
the world to me.” 

“Well, the world is pretty small after all,” 
said Sir Percy. “ Only fancy my finding you 
here in.Richmond! ” 

Then ensued much handshaking and many 
explanations which Mary felt due her former 


292 Masquerading Mary 

employers. Mrs. Meade was graciousness 
itself. 

“ I knew it all the time,” she declared re¬ 
peatedly. “ Haven’t I said over and over to 
you, Henry, that Miss Mary — I mean Lady 
Mary — was only masquerading as a nursery 
governess.” She also pressed the young couple 
to remain as her “ house guests,” but the invita¬ 
tion was declined and soon Percy and Mary 
took themselves off for a down town hotel. 

Miss Somer said but little, and that little 
grimly. She was not a whit embarrassed that 
she had accused an English lady of being a 
thief. If ladies expected to be recognized as 
such they should behave as such. English aris¬ 
tocracy was no better than Virginia aristocracy 
— not so good in fact — for, according to her 
way of thinking, the F. F. V’s. had a much 
cleaner line of descent than the nobility of Eng¬ 
land. For her part she felt it a blessing that 
Henry Marshall Meade IV was no longer to 
be at the mercy of this pert girl. 

“ Now that you are to make a change in 
nurses, Virginia, I know of an excellent negro 
mammy who can do up the baby’s cap strings, 
in fact all of his washing, as well as nurse. I 
saw Sukey in the park to-day and promised to 
look out for a good home for her. She is an 


293 


Masquerading Mary 

excellent old-time nurse without any new¬ 
fangled foolishness about her. Shall I engage 
her for you? ” 

Virginia was pleased to be gracious to even 
Miss Somer, thanked her warmly for her in¬ 
terest and commissioned her to procure Aunt 
Sukey at the earliest hour possible. 

“ In the meantime I am going to stay, if 
you will have me, Virginia, and help you take 
care of the baby until you get Aunt Sukey,” 
whispered Peachey. 

“ Your room is always ready for you,” an¬ 
swered Virginia. “ In fact, if I had not thought 
that you might soon visit us I should have in¬ 
sisted upon Sir Percy and Lady Mary staying 
here. Of course, I asked them, but I felt all 
the time that if I could have been free to 
turn over to them the whole suite on the third 
floor I might have made my invitation more 
pressing and not so evidently perfunctory.” 

Mrs. Meade spent a restless night. She had 
a question to decide which was more important 
than mere sleep. Should she or should she not 
tell the younger married set all about the affair 
with the nursery governess? Of course she had 
every intention of letting them know that she 
had entertained, quite informally, Sir Percy 
and Lady Mary, but would it add any to her 


294 Masquerading Mary 

social prestige to have had Lady Mary Darcy 
nursing the baby and eating in the butler’s 
pantry? 

Another thing that worried her was the 
matter of Miss Mary’s wages. Should she offer 
to the wife of Sir Percy Darcy the two weeks’ 
wages which were then due? Of course, strictly 
speaking, the nursery governess should not have 
quit without two weeks’ notice to her employers. 
Now if the couple had accepted the offer of her 
hospitality, of course it would have been out 
of taste to pay Lady Mary’s back wages, but 
since they had gone to the Jefferson Hotel, 
where they would no doubt stay for several 
days, was it not right that the wages should be 
paid? Mrs. Meade vaguely wondered if the 
book on etiquette, so largely advertised, would 
settle so delicate a question as the one keeping 
her from the sleep so much needed after the 
hectic day just passed. She longed to awaken 
her husband, who was soundly sleeping by her 
side and seemingly not the least uplifted or 
downcast over having had an English nobleman 
to dinner while an English noblewoman waited 
on the table. Henry would know what to do. 
She was sure of it, but she was also sure he 
would have that dreaded twinkle in his eye. She 
finally decided to call Price Winston in consul- 


295 


Masquerading Mary 

tation. Was he not a diplomat and trained to 
settle delicate matters between nations? Before 
the poor lady conquered her insomnia the ques¬ 
tion of Lady Mary’s wages had assumed inter¬ 
national importance. However, when she finally 
decided to leave it to the young attache she 
sank into a reposeful slumber. 

How foolish it was to have worried about it! 
The next morning when Lady Mary Darcy 
went to the Meade home on Monument Avenue 
to pack her trunk, she herself broached the sub¬ 
ject of the wages due her, quite simply and 
without the least embarrassment. 

“ She took the money — actually took it,” 
Virginia exploded to the intimate friend who 
was finally taken into her confidence. “ I don’t 
see how she could have if she is the great lady 
and society leader Peachey would have me be¬ 
lieve her to be. Yes, she took it and folded the 
bills up into the neatest little squares and put 
them in her purse. And I felt like a fool 
because I hadn’t liked to offer her the wages 
for fear of hurting her feelings.” 

“But hadn’t she earned it?” asked the inti¬ 
mate. 

“ Yes, but I call it obtaining money under 
false pretences. She knew perfectly well I 
never would have hired her if I had known she 


296 Masquerading Mary 

was a real lady. I thought she was just lady¬ 
like.’’ 

Blanche helped Lady Mary pack her belong¬ 
ings and reaped a wonderful harvest of waists 
and skirts and cast-off clothes of all descrip¬ 
tions. 

“ Aunt Maria an’ Uncle Cy an’ me air sho 
sorry you is a quittin’, but I’m pow’ful glad ter 
be cornin’ inter these here raiments. Yessum. 
they’s kinder near on me but I kin make out ter 
hold in an’ not bust the belts. Aunt Maria air 
sorry now she done let herself go ’til she’s 
too stoutish ter wear white folks’ clothes.” 

The reunited couple remained in Richmond 
several days. Percy wished to look more closely 
into some investments he had been contem¬ 
plating, and Mary felt she could not leave the 
pleasant southern city until she squared herself 
with her first and best friend in the States, Miss 
Effie Sharp Burton. 

Squaring herself with Miss Effie was an easy 
matter. 

“Bless you, my dear, I knew all the time 
you were married and, what’s more, I had a 
hunch his name was Percy. How did I know? 
Don’t you remember how you put your head 
on my shoulder and went to sleep on that day 
coach? Well, once when the train gave a jolt 


297 


Masquerading Mary 

I put my arm around you to steady you and 
you snuggled up confiding like and softly mur¬ 
mured : ‘ Percy.’ That’s how I knew what his 
name was. Then I knew you were married be¬ 
cause when the Traveler’s Aid lady asked you 
if you were single you hesitated and I had to 
butt in and say you were. I knew, but I trusted 
you and wasn’t going to ask any questions. 
When you got ready to tell me I was all ears, 
but until then your business was your business 
and not mine. What I was afraid of was that 
Percy was going to prove to be a mucker 
and I’m mighty glad to see what a good fellow 
he is. Fact is, I like him — I like him a whole 
lot and I’m thinking he is worthy of you and 
that is speaking a mouthful, little lady. Yes, 
I’m going to come over to England to visit you, 
coming the first chance I get if I have to go 
steerage over and stowaway coming back. I’ve 
got other friends on the other side I’ll have to 
look up. I’m mighty sorry I can’t say I used 
to play with Lady Astor when we were kids, 
but I can say that if I had known her that 
we would have played together because she’s 
just my kind — not particular about who she 
’sociates with just so they don’t put on airs.” 

Needless to say that at this Mary laughed. 























































































































































































































































































